Health and Wellbeing Check – an update

15th January 2026 | David Andrassy

We reported in August on the successful launch of Live Well with Pain’s Health and Wellbeing Check tool. This is one of the most detailed – and most interactive – of LWWP’s self-assessment resources to be developed so far for people with pain. We’re delighted to say that in its first few months it is also proving to be among the most popular.

Since launching online late last year the Health and Wellbeing Check has been completed by over 1,200 people. One of the key features of the tool which we believe contributes to its acceptability, is its anonymity: LWWP does not save or collect any identifiable data from users.
Anonymised, aggregated data is collected however, as one of LWWP’s aims is to be able to identify trends that can inform pain self management policy and practice.
And we are already seeing interesting patterns emerging. For example, in the question about emotional wellbeing, two areas stand out (see fig. 1, below). Unlike ‘feeling cheerful’, ‘relaxed’ or ‘interested in life’ which most respondents had felt at least some of the time, large numbers of
respondents had not felt ‘active and vigorous’, or had ‘woken up feeling refreshed’ at any time at all in the past fortnight.
This is reflected in responses to the question about other issues that are affecting people, apart from the pain itself, where the two most frequently cited issues are “disturbed sleep, tiredness or lack of energy” and “walking or moving about, lack of fitness and stamina.” (see fig. 2)
Live Well with Pain has long argued that, among the many areas of life that people with pain want to prioritise as they develop their self-confidence, sleep and activity levels are among the most pressing. Now, thanks to data from the Health and Wellbeing Check tool we are beginning to see some hard evidence to back this up.

Feedback on the experience of using the tool

We also ask everyone who completes the Health and Wellbeing Check if they are willing to answer a short questionnaire on their experience of using the tool.
We are very grateful that many have done so, and we are really pleased that the verdict so far has been an overwhelming thumbs up.
Almost 97% of respondents found the Health and Wellbeing Check tool to be ‘very easy’, ‘quite easy’ or ‘reasonably easy’ to complete.
Over half (55%) found it helped them ‘reflect on how they have been feeling recently’.
Nearly a third of respondents (32%) were helped to ‘think about my confidence to manage the pain’ as a result of completing the tool.
And 60% felt it helped them ‘prioritise the areas I want to work on.’
If you haven’t tried using the Health and Wellbeing Check yet, you can find it on the website here.
And if you are a practitioner working with people on their pain self management skills, why not explore using it with them, as a starting point for developing shared priorities and ‘buy in’ to the idea of self management as a way forward.
To everyone who has used the Health and Wellbeing Check so far – and everyone who has given their feedback on it – thank you for helping!

 

This article first appeared in Live Well with Pain’s January 2026 newsletter.

You can download a PDF of the January edition here:

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