My name is Jordi Miró and I am a professor of Health Psychology at the University Rovira-Virgili (URV; Tarragona, Spain). For more than 30 years I have devoted my working life to studying and treating people with chronic pain.
In all these years, it has come to my attention that, despite having the most needs, the most vulnerable populations are the ones that receive the least attention. The case of children is a paradigmatic example, as is the case of blind people.
Indeed, research has shown that blind people are more sensitive to pain, and are more vigilant to painful stimuli. Research has also shown that hypersensitivity and hypervigilance are risk factors for chronic pain. Even so, there is very little specific research on the problems caused by chronic pain in people with vision problems, and much less on the most appropriate treatments, or on the development of treatments, for the needs of this population.
For these reasons the URV’s Chair in Pediatric Pain, in collaboration with healthcare professionals and blind people, is about to undertake a project to find data that will enable the following questions to be solved: 1) What are the most common pain problems?, and 2) What treatment needs do blind and low-vision individuals have? The aim is to develop better treatments, including those supported by mobile applications, that can improve the quality of life of individuals with visual problems who also suffer from pain. We intend it to be an international study and we are contacting you to request your help.
The aim of the project is to make the collected data available to all researchers in the world so that they can carry out studies in this field. The data will be open access. It is a collaborative project that aspires to be useful to all people with this type of problem, regardless of their gender, age, and nationality.
The project will be undertaken in three phases. The objectives of the first one are to identify common pain problems, their characteristics and treatment needs. The second has been designed specifically for blind and low-vision individuals, who also suffer from chronic pain. In this phase, more specific data will be collected on pain and the factors that are associated with its impact, which will be used to develop specific new treatments based on these factors. And the third will develop and study the efficacy of specific treatments supported by mobile applications, which will be free and available to all who need them (healthcare professionals, patients, families, associations, etc.).
At this point, the online survey and associated information is available in Catalan, Spanish, English, French, and Arabic, and we have some friends that are helping to translate them into Romanian, Portuguese, Italian, German, Ukrainian, and Mandarin. None of them are professional translators. The thing is that we cannot afford to pay for the translations, but some people like the project and are willing to donate their time to help us.
We want this project and the outcomes to be available (for free) to all individuals that need support and treatment (anywhere in the world, and at any time). However, in order to be able to do so, we need to have the materials in languages that we do not know. We need to translate the materials, and have no funds for this. A friend of a friend suggested me that I reached to you to ask for help. So here you have my post and request.
Would you please be willing to help us?
I could send you more information so that you have a better idea of what it is that I am asking for. The word count feature of the “Word” program tells me that the two documents are 800 words long, this includes an invitation letter for the national associations for the blinds to participate and the first online survey.
I hope you like the project and the aims, and will be able to help us. If you do, and you are interested in helping us, please send me a message at: jordi.miro@urv.cat I will get back to you right away.
I look forward receiving your response to my request.
Kind regards,
Jordi
and for our amazing volunteers who are willing to help 
