Acupuncture Approaches for Chronic Pain

Summary

Chronic pain is a major public health problem that places many burdens on individuals, including impairment of physical and psychological functioning, lost productivity, and side effects of medications used to treat pain. There is also substantial evidence that minority populations differ both in prevalence and outcomes of chronic pain; access to care is a key component in these differences. Strong evidence now supports the use of acupuncture in the treatment of chronic pain conditions, including when provided in the primary care setting to participants from ethnically diverse, medically underserved populations. Acupuncture is slowly being integrated into pain management in many conventional health care settings, but cost and reimbursement for this service remain obstacles to offering acupuncture, especially in primary care and safety net settings. Because group acupuncture can be offered at much lower cost, demonstrating that individual and group delivery are equally effective could reduce barriers to use of this effective pain management approach.

The primary aim of this study will be to evaluate whether acupuncture delivered in the group setting for participants with chronic pain is equal to acupuncture delivered in the individual setting. A secondary objective will be to use qualitative analysis to understand and describe the participants' experience of both acupuncture approaches, and to utilize this data to inform intervention delivery and dissemination, to better incorporate the participants' perspective.

Conditions

• Chronic Pain
• Osteoarthritis
• Neck Pain
• Back Pain

Interventions

PROCEDURE

Group/Community Acupuncture

Acupuncture treatment in a group setting.

PROCEDURE

Individual Acupuncture

Acupuncture treatment in an individual setting.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Montefiore Medical Center

  collaborator OTHER

• Mount Sinai Beth Israel Department of Integrated Medicine

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Pacific College of Oriental Medicine

  collaborator OTHER

• Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute

  collaborator OTHER

• Albert Einstein College of Medicine

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• M. Diane McKee, MD, MS · Albert Einstein College of Medicine

• Benjamin Kligler, MD · Mount Sinai Beth Israel

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

21 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2015-05-31

Primary Completion

2018-03-31

Completion

2018-03-31

Countries

• United States

Study Locations