Feasibility of Web-Based Single-Session Empowered Relief in Patients With Chronic Pain Taking Methadone or Buprenorphine: Protocol for a Single-Arm Trial.

BACKGROUND: Chronic pain affects tens of millions of US adults and continues to rise in prevalence. Nonpharmacologic behavioral pain treatments are greatly needed and yet are often inaccessible, particularly in settings where medication prescribing is prioritized. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to test the feasibility of a live-instructor, web-based 1-session pain relief skills class in an underserved and potentially at-risk population: people with chronic pain prescribed methadone or buprenorphine either solely for pain or for comorbid opioid use disorder (OUD). METHODS: This is a national, prospective, single-arm, uncontrolled feasibility trial. The trial is untethered from medical care; to enhance participants' willingness to join the study, no medical records or drug-monitoring records are accessed. At least 45 participants will be recruited from outpatient pain clinics and from an existing research database of individuals who have chronic pain and are taking methadone or buprenorphine. Patient-reported measures will be collected at 6 time points (baseline, immediately post treatment, 2 weeks, and months 1-3) via a web-based platform, paper, or phone formats to include individuals with limited internet or computer access and low literacy skills. At baseline, participants complete demographic questions and 13 study measures (Treatment Expectations, Body Pain Map, Medication Use, Pain Catastrophizing Scale [PCS], Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System [PROMIS] Measures, and Opioid Craving Scale). Immediately post treatment, a treatment satisfaction and acceptability measure is administered on a 0 (very dissatisfied) to 10 (completely satisfied) scale, with 3 of these items being the primary outcome (perceived usefulness, participant satisfaction, and likelihood of using the skills). At each remaining time point, the participants complete all study measures minus treatment expectations and satisfaction. Participants who do not have current OUD will be assessed for historical OUD, with presence of OUD (yes or no), and history of OUD (yes or no) reported separately. Feasibility threshold is set as an overall group treatment satisfaction rating of 8 of 10. In-depth qualitative interviews will be conducted with about 10 participants to obtain additional data on patient perceptions, satisfactions, needs, and wants. To assess preliminary efficacy, we will examine changes in pain catastrophizing, pain intensity, pain bothersomeness, sleep disturbance, pain interference, depression, anxiety, physical function, global impression of change, and opioid craving at 1 month post treatment. RESULTS: This project opened to enrollment in September 2021 and completed the recruitment in October 2023. The data collection was completed in February 2024. Results are expected to be published in late 2024. CONCLUSIONS: Results from this trial will inform the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of Empowered Relief in this population and will inform the design of a future randomized controlled trial testing web-based Empowered Relief in chronic pain and comorbid OUD. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05057988; https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05057988. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): DERR1-10.2196/53784.

The Problem of Pain in Lupus: Epidemiological Profiles of Patients Attending Multidisciplinary Pain Clinics.

INTRODUCTION: Patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) bear a significant burden of pain. We aimed to identify factors that distinguish patients with SLE referred to comprehensive pain clinics and those who are not. Characterizing this patient population will identify unmet needs in SLE management and inform efforts to improve pain care in rheumatology. METHODS: Among patients with SLE with ≥2 rheumatology clinic visits in a large hospital system from 1998 to 2023 (n = 1319), we examined factors that distinguished those who had at least one visit to multidisciplinary pain clinics (n = 77, 5.8%) from those who did not have any visits (n = 1242, 94.2%) with a focus on biopsychosocial and socioeconomic characteristics. We extracted demographic data and ICD-9/ICD-10 codes from the EHR. RESULTS: Patients with SLE attending the pain clinics exhibited characteristics including average older age (mean age ± SD: 54.1 ± 17.9 vs. 48.4 ± 19.9), a higher likelihood of relying on public health insurance (50.7% vs. 34.2%), and a greater representation of Black patients (9.1% vs. 4.4%) compared to SLE patients not seen in pain clinics. Nearly all patients seen at the pain clinics presented with at least one chronic overlapping pain condition (96.1% vs. 58.6%), demonstrated a higher likelihood of having a mental health diagnosis (76.7% vs. 42.4%), and exhibited a greater number of comorbidities (mean ± SD: 6.0 ± 3.0 vs. 2.9 ± 2.6) compared to those not attending the pain clinic. CONCLUSION: We found notable sociodemographic and clinical differences between these patient populations. Patients presenting with multiple comorbidities might benefit from further pain screening and referral to pain clinics to provide comprehensive care, and earlier referral could mitigate the development and progression of multimorbidities.

A digital health intervention to support patients with chronic pain during prescription opioid tapering: a pilot randomised controlled trial.

Introduction: Recent changes in opioid prescribing guidelines have led to an increasing number of patients with chronic pain being recommended to taper. However, opioid tapering can be challenging, and many patients require support. Objectives: We evaluated the feasibility, acceptability, and potential efficacy of a codesigned digital health intervention to support patients with chronic pain during voluntary prescription opioid tapering. Methods: In a pilot randomised controlled trial, participants received a psychoeducational video and 28 days of text messages (2 SMS/day) in addition to their usual care (intervention) or usual care alone (control). The feasibility, acceptability, and potential efficacy of the intervention were evaluated. The primary outcome was opioid tapering self-efficacy. Secondary outcomes were pain intensity and interference, anxiety and depression symptom severity, pain catastrophising, and pain self-efficacy. Results: Of 28 randomised participants, 26 completed the study (13 per group). Text message delivery was high (99.2%), but fidelity of video delivery was low (57.1%). Most participants rated the messages as useful, supportive, encouraging, and engaging; 78.5% would recommend the intervention to others; and 64.2% desired a longer intervention period. Tapering self-efficacy (Cohen d = 0.74) and pain self-efficacy (d = 0.41) were higher, and pain intensity (d = 0.65) and affective interference (d = 0.45) were lower in the intervention group at week 4. Conclusion: First evidence supports the feasibility, acceptability, and potentially efficacy of a psychoeducational video and SMS text messaging intervention to support patients with chronic pain during voluntary prescription opioid tapering. Definitive trials with longer intervention duration are warranted.

Is There an Association Between Lateralization of Chronic Pain in the Body and Depression?

Depression commonly co-occurs with chronic pain and can worsen pain outcomes. Recent theoretical work has hypothesized that pain localized to the left hemibody is a risk factor for worse depression due to overlap in underlying neural substrates. This hypothesis has not been tested a priori. Using a large sample of treatment-seeking adults with mixed-etiology chronic pain (N = 1,185), our cross-sectional study tested whether patients with left-sided pain endorse worse depressive symptoms. We also examined differences in other pain-related functioning measures. We tested 4 comparisons based on painful body areas using the CHOIR body map: 1) only left-sided (OL) versus any right-sided pain; 2) only right-sided (OR) versus any left-sided pain; 3) OL versus OR versus bilateral pain; and 4) more left-sided versus more right-sided versus equal-sided pain. Analysis of variance models showed OL pain was not associated with worse depression (F = 5.50, P = .019). Any left-sided pain was associated with worse depression, though the effect was small (F = 8.58, P = .003, Cohens d = .29). Bilateral pain was associated with worse depression (F = 8.05, P < .001, Cohens d = .24-.33). Regardless of pain location, more body areas endorsed was associated with greater depression. Although a more rigorous assessment of pain laterality is needed, our findings do not support the hypothesis that left-lateralized pain is associated with worse depression. PERSPECTIVE: Pain lateralized to the left side of the body has been hypothesized as a risk factor for worse depression in chronic pain, despite never being tested in a large, real-world sample of patients with chronic pain. Findings showed that more widespread pain, not pain laterality, was associated with worse depression.

Empowered Relief, cognitive behavioral therapy, and health education for people with chronic pain: a comparison of outcomes at 6-month Follow-up for a randomized controlled trial.

Introduction: We previously conducted a 3-arm randomized trial (263 adults with chronic low back pain) which compared group-based (1) single-session pain relief skills intervention (Empowered Relief; ER); (2) 8-session cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for chronic back pain; and (3) single-session health and back pain education class (HE). Results suggested non-inferiority of ER vs. CBT at 3 months post-treatment on an array of outcomes. Methods: Here, we tested the durability of treatment effects at 6 months post-treatment. We examined group differences in primary and secondary outcomes at 6 months and the degree to which outcomes eroded or improved from 3-month to 6-month within each treatment group. Results: Empowered Relief remained non-inferior to CBT on most outcomes, whereas both ER and CBT remained superior to HE on most outcomes. Outcome improvements within ER did not decrease significantly from 3-month to 6-month, and indeed ER showed additional 3- to 6-month improvements on pain catastrophizing, pain bothersomeness, and anxiety. Effects of ER at 6 months post-treatment (moderate term outcomes) kept pace with effects reported by participants who underwent 8-session CBT. Conclusions: The maintenance of these absolute levels implies strong stability of ER effects. Results extend to 6 months post-treatment previous findings documenting that ER and CBT exhibit similarly potent effects on outcomes.

The Problem of Pain in Rheumatology: Variations in Case Definitions Derived From Chronic Pain Phenotyping Algorithms Using Electronic Health Records.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to investigate and compare different case definitions for chronic pain to provide estimates of possible misclassification when researchers are limited by available electronic health record and administrative claims data, allowing for greater precision in case definitions. METHODS: We compared the prevalence of different case definitions for chronic pain (N = 3042) in patients with autoimmune rheumatic diseases. We estimated the prevalence of chronic pain based on 15 unique combinations of pain scores, diagnostic codes, analgesic medications, and pain interventions. RESULTS: Chronic pain prevalence was lowest in unimodal pain phenotyping algorithms: 15% using analgesic medications, 18% using pain scores, 21% using pain diagnostic codes, and 22% using pain interventions. In comparison, the prevalence using a well-validated phenotyping algorithm was 37%. The prevalence of chronic pain also increased with the increasing number (bimodal to quadrimodal) of phenotyping algorithms that comprised the multimodal phenotyping algorithms. The highest estimated chronic pain prevalence (47%) was the multimodal phenotyping algorithm that combined pain scores, diagnostic codes, analgesic medications, and pain interventions. However, this quadrimodal phenotyping algorithm yielded a 10% overestimation of chronic pain compared to the well-validated algorithm. CONCLUSION: This is the first empirical study to our knowledge that shows that established common modes of phenotyping chronic pain can lead to substantially varying estimates of the number of patients with chronic pain. These findings can be a reference for biases in case definitions for chronic pain and could be used to estimate the extent of possible misclassifications or corrections in using datasets that cannot include specific data elements.

Establishing the interpretability and utility of the 4-item BriefPCS.

To reduce the patient burden associated with completing the 13-item Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS), the 4-item "BriefPCS" was developed. To date, no crosswalk has been developed that associates scores on the BriefPCS with PCS scores. Further, no study has compared the use of BriefPCS and PCS scores in a randomized clinical trial (RCT). We aimed to: (1) establish the interpretability of BriefPCS scores in reference to PCS scores, (2) compare the concurrent validity between the BriefPCS and PCS, and (3) asssess the use of BriefPCS in an RCT. First, we conducted equipercentile linking, created a crosswalk that associated scores of BriefPCS with PCS, and calculated differences between PCS and crosswalked PCS scores. Secondly, we compared Bootstrap correlation coefficients between PCS and self-reported measures of other domains. Lastly, we compared results from an RCT using BriefPCS scores versus PCS scores. Findings indicated that the correlation coefficient estimates with the BriefPCS and PCS scores were not significantly different. BriefPCS and PCS scores had similar ability to detect treatment-related changes. The BriefPCS scores validly, reliably, and accurately distinguish levels of pain catastrophizing. Additionally, the BriefPCS scores are sensitive to changes after behavioral interventions, with less respondent burden compared to the PCS scores.

Text messaging intervention to support patients with chronic pain during prescription opioid tapering: protocol for a double-blind randomised controlled trial.

INTRODUCTION: Increases in pain and interference with quality of life is a common concern among people with chronic non-cancer pain (CNCP) who are tapering opioid medications. Research indicates that access to social and psychological support for pain self-management may help people to reduce their opioid dose without increasing pain and interference. This study evaluates the efficacy of a text messaging intervention designed to provide people with CNCP with social and psychological support for pain self-management while tapering long-term opioid therapy (LTOT) under the guidance of their prescriber. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: A double-blind randomised controlled trial will be conducted. Patients with CNCP (n=74) who are tapering LTOT will be enrolled from across Australia. Participants will continue with their usual care while tapering LTOT under the supervision of their prescribing physician. They will randomly receive either a psychoeducational video and supportive text messaging (two Short Message Service (SMS) per day) for 12 weeks or the video only. The primary outcome is the pain intensity and interference assessed by the Pain, Enjoyment of Life and General Activity scale. Secondary outcomes include mood, self-efficacy, pain cognitions, opioid dose reduction, withdrawal symptoms, and acceptability, feasibility, and safety of the intervention. Participants will complete questionnaires at baseline and then every 4 weeks for 12 weeks and will be interviewed at week 12. This trial will provide evidence for the efficacy of a text messaging intervention to support patients with CNCP who are tapering LTOT. If proven to be efficacious and safe, this low-cost intervention can be implemented at scale. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The study protocol was reviewed and approved by the Northern Sydney Local Health District (Australia). Study results will be published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at scientific and professional meetings. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: ACTRN12622001423707.

Innovative treatment formats, technologies, and clinician trainings that improve access to behavioral pain treatment for youth and adults.

Chronic pain is prevalent across the life span and associated with significant individual and societal costs. Behavioral interventions are recommended as the gold-standard, evidence-based interventions for chronic pain, but barriers, such as lack of pain-trained clinicians, poor insurance coverage, and high treatment burden, limit patients' ability to access evidenced-based pain education and treatment resources. Recent advances in technology offer new opportunities to leverage innovative digital formats to overcome these barriers and dramatically increase access to high-quality, evidenced-based pain treatments for youth and adults. This scoping review highlights new advances. First, we describe system-level barriers to the broad dissemination of behavioral pain treatment. Next, we review several promising new pediatric and adult pain education and treatment technology innovations to improve access and scalability of evidence-based behavioral pain treatments. Current challenges and future research and clinical recommendations are offered.

A Longitudinal Investigation of the Impact of COVID-19 on Patients With Chronic Pain.

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted unexpected changes in the healthcare system. This current longitudinal study had 2 aims: 1) describe the trajectory of pandemic-associated stressors and patient-reported health outcomes among patients receiving treatment at a tertiary pain clinic over 2 years (May 2020 to June 2022); and 2) identify vulnerable subgroups. We assessed changes in pandemic-associated stressors and patient-reported health outcome measures. The study sample included 1270 adult patients who were predominantly female (74.6%), White (66.2%), non-Hispanic (80.6%), married (66.1%), not on disability (71.2%), college-educated (59.45%), and not currently working (57.9%). We conducted linear mixed effect modeling to examine the main effect of time with controlling for a random intercept. Findings revealed a significant main effect of time for all pandemic-associated stressors except financial impact. Over time, patients reported increased proximity to COVID-19, but decreased pandemic-associated stressors. A significant improvement was also observed in pain intensity, pain catastrophizing, and PROMIS-pain interference, sleep, anxiety, anger, and depression scores. Demographic-based subgroup analyses for pandemic-associated stressors revealed that younger adults, Hispanics, Asians, and patients receiving disability compensation were vulnerable groups either during the initial visit or follow-up visits. We observed additional differential pandemic effects between groups based on participant sex, education level, and working status. In conclusion, despite unanticipated changes in pain care services during the pandemic, patients receiving pain treatments adjusted to pandemic-related stressors and improved their health status over time. As the current study observed differential pandemic impacts on patient subgroups, future studies should investigate and address the unmet needs of vulnerable subgroups. PERSPECTIVE: Over a 2-year timeframe, the pandemic did not adversely influence physical and mental health among treatment-seeking patients with chronic pain. Patients reported small but significant improvements across indices of physical and psychosocial health. Differential impacts emerged among groups based on ethnicity, age, disability status, gender, education level, and working status.

Psychological Approaches for Migraine Management.

Migraine headaches are among the most prevalent and disabling pain conditions worldwide. Best-practice migraine management is multidisciplinary and includes the psychological approaches to address cognitive, behavioral, and affective factors that worsen pain, distress, and disability. The psychological interventions with the strongest research support are relaxation strategies, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and biofeedback, though the quality of clinical trials for all psychological interventions needs continued improvement. The efficacy of psychological interventions may be improved by validating technology-based delivery systems, developing interventions for trauma and life stress, and precision medicine approaches matching treatments to patients based on specific clinical characteristics.

A digital health intervention to support patients with chronic pain during prescription opioid tapering: a pilot randomised controlled trial.

Introduction: Recent changes in opioid prescribing guidelines have led to an increasing number of patients with chronic pain being recommended to taper. However, opioid tapering can be challenging, and many patients require support. Objectives: We evaluated the feasibility, acceptability, and potential efficacy of a co-designed psycho-educational video and SMS text messaging intervention to support patients with chronic pain during prescription opioid tapering. Methods: A pilot randomised controlled trial was conducted. In addition to their usual care, participants in the intervention group received a psycho-educational video and 28 days of text messages (two SMS/day). The control group received usual care. The feasibility, acceptability, and potential efficacy of the intervention were evaluated. The primary outcome was opioid tapering self-efficacy. Secondary outcomes were pain intensity and interference, anxiety and depression symptom severity, pain catastrophising, and pain self-efficacy. Results: Of 28 randomised participants, 26 completed the study (13 in each group). Text message delivery was 99.2% successful. Most participants rated the messages as useful, supportive, encouraging, and engaging, 78.5% would recommend the intervention to others, and 64% desired a longer intervention period. Tapering self-efficacy (Cohen's d = 0.74) and pain self-efficacy (d = 0.41) were higher and pain intensity (d = 0.65) and affective interference (d = 0.45) lower in the intervention group at week 4. Conclusions: It is feasible, acceptable, and potentially efficacious to support patients with chronic pain during prescription opioid tapering with a psycho-educational video and SMS text messaging intervention. A definitive trial has been initiated to test a 12-week intervention.

Spontaneous self-affirmation: an adaptive coping strategy for people with chronic pain.

OBJECTIVES: Self-affirmation may be a promising treatment strategy for improving clinical outcomes. This study examined the association between self-affirmation and self-reported health status among people with chronic pain. METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, 768 treatment seeking people (female 67.2%, mean age=50.4 years with SD of 17.1, White/Caucasian 59.9%) completed surveys using a learning healthcare system. Measures included spontaneous self-affirmation (SSA) items, PROMIS® outcome measures, and Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS). Multiple regressions were conducted to examine if strength-based SSA, value-based SSA, and their interaction would predict perceived health status and pain coping strategy. Sensitivity analysis was done by performing additional regressions with covariates (age, sex, race/ethnicity, and education). Lastly, exploratory analysis examined if average SSA scores would have a linear relationship with perceived health status. RESULTS: The strength x value-based SSA interaction significantly predicted the PROMIS-depression, anxiety, and social isolation T-scores (ps≤0.007), but not anger T-scores (p=0.067). Specifically, greater tendency to use both SSA styles predicted less symptoms of depression, anxiety and social isolation. This interaction remained significant when controlling for the covariates. The two SSA styles and their interaction did not significantly predict pain interference, sleep disturbance, fatigue, average pain rating and PCS scores (ps≥0.054). Exploratory analysis revealed SSA average scores did not have a significant linear relationship with perceived health status. CONCLUSIONS: The current study showed self-affirmation as being associated with better psychosocial health, but not associated with physical health and pain catastrophizing among patients with chronic pain. Our findings suggested the potential benefit of incorporating strength- and value-based affirmations in pain intervention approaches.

Self-reported physical function is strongly related to pain behavior and pain interference and weakly related to physical capacity in people with chronic low back pain.

BACKGROUND: Inclusion of self-reported and capacity-based measures may help to further elucidate the interactive link between how people think and move. OBJECTIVE: To characterize the relationship between self-reported factors of physical function and pain with objective physical capacity measures. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study of 328 adults with chronic low back pain (CLBP). METHOD: Spearman correlations assessed the relationship between pairs of measures. Multiple linear regression models assessed the association between self-reported measures of physical function and the grouping of physical capacity measures. Self-reported measures included Roland Morris Disability Questionnaire (RMDQ), PROMIS Physical Function, Pain Behavior, and Pain Interference; Fear-Avoidance Beliefs Questionnaire (FABQ), Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS), and Chronic Pain Acceptance Questionnaire (CPAQ). Capacity measures included walking speed and endurance, lower extremity functional strength, lumbopelvic range of motion, and trunk endurance. RESULTS: PROMIS Physical Function was directly and weakly correlated with walking speed (ρ = 0.26, 2-min walk) and inversely and weakly correlated with lower extremity strength (ρ = -0.29, 5x sit-to-stand). RMDQ was not correlated with any of the capacity-based measures. PROMIS Physical Function was inversely and moderately correlated with Pain Interference (ρ = -0.48) and Pain Behavior (ρ = -0.43), PCS (ρ = -0.36), and FABQ (ρ = -0.31). The RMDQ was strongly correlated with PROMIS Physical Function (ρ = -0.56), Pain Behavior (ρ = 0.51) and Pain Interference (ρ = 0.49); and moderately correlated with PCS (ρ = 0.37) and FABQ (ρ = 0.33). PROMIS Physical Function and RMDQ were not correlated with CPAQ. Lower scores on PROMIS Physical Function were weakly associated with lower measures of lower extremity strength (-0.30, 95% CI: -0.51 to -0.09, p = 0.005). Higher scores on RMDQ were also weakly associated with lower measures of lower extremity strength (0.26, 95% CI: 0.11 to 0.41, p = 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: A strong association emerged between self-reported limitations in physical function, pain behavior, and pain interference. A weak association emerged between self-reported physical function and lower extremity strength.

Patient Responses to the Term Pain Catastrophizing: Thematic Analysis of Cross-sectional International Data.

Pain catastrophizing is understood as a negative cognitive and emotional response to pain. Researchers, advocates and patients have reported stigmatizing effects of the term in clinical settings and the media. We conducted an international study to investigate patient perspectives on the term pain catastrophizing. Open-ended electronic patient and caregiver proxy surveys were promoted internationally by collaborator stakeholders and through social media. 3,521 surveys were received from 47 countries (77.3% from the U.S.). The sample was mainly female (82.1%), with a mean age of 41.62 (SD 12.03) years; 95% reported ongoing pain and pain duration > 10 years (68.4%). Forty-five percent (n = 1,295) had heard of the term pain catastrophizing; 12% (n = 349) reported being described as a 'pain catastrophizer' by a clinician with associated high levels of feeling blamed, judged, and dismissed. We present qualitative thematic data analytics for responses to open-ended questions, with 32% of responses highlighting the problematic nature of the term. We present the patients' perspective on the term pain catastrophizing, its material effect on clinical experiences, and associations with negative gender stereotypes. Use of patient-centered terminology may be important for favorably shaping the social context of patients' experience of pain and pain care. PERSPECTIVE: Our international patient survey found that 45% had heard of the term pain catastrophizing, about one-third spontaneously rated the term as problematic, and 12% reported the term was applied to them with most stating this was a negative experience. Clinician education on patient-centered terminology may improve care and reduce stigma.