Internet-based Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Chronic Pain

Summary

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) delivered face-to-face is an empirically supported intervention for the management of chronic pain (CP). However, increasing demands for cost reduction in healthcare services in addition to obstacles regarding physical access to treatment, highlight the need for innovative, cost-reducing, digital self-management interventions. Poor user engagement nonetheless, is a significant challenge often faced in digital interventions, which often results in poor adherence or even non-completion in treatment. In addition, very few digital trials appear to plan for adherence a-priori, when designing an intervention. To date there are only two ACT-based digital interventions for CP demonstrating significant improvements in pain-related disability and increased functioning, yet with small to medium effect sizes and poor adherence rates. However, several limitations of the studies such as the absence of a-priori adherence planning and lack of investigation of underlying mechanisms, makes it difficult to draw clear conclusions on the effectiveness of this new treatment modality for chronic pain and warrants further research. This study seeks to: a) explore how a brief adherence-planned digital ACT-based intervention for CP management, compared to an active control group and a wait-list control group improves targeted study outcomes such as functioning and quality of life, and b) investigate which processes of change mediate the targeted study outcomes. It is hypothesized that the brief ACT-based digital intervention in comparison to the active control group and wait-list will result in increased functioning, improved quality of life and reduced pain intensity. The results of the study are expected to shed more light on the utility of planning for adherence in digital interventions and effectiveness of ACT-based digital interventions and their underlying mechanisms in the management of CP.

Conditions

• Chronic Pain

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

ALGEApp (Brief iACT intervention)

Participants will be randomly assigned to one of the two groups: brief i-ACT intervention or active control group. The i-ACT intervention participants will be encouraged to login the website platform with their credentials and to complete 4 weekly sessions (1 session per week) which lasts about 1 hour each. Participants will be guided by a 3D- animated Avatar who adopts the role of a facilitator.

BEHAVIORAL

Active control group

Participants will be randomly assigned to one of the two groups: brief i-ACT intervention or active control group. The active control group will have access, through the same platform. only to limited online psycho-educational information regarding pain. Active control group will complete pre-treatment and post-treatment questionnaires in parallel with the intervention group.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Cyprus

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Maria Karekla, Ph.D · University of Cyprus

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

DOUBLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2018-01-31

Primary Completion

2018-03-31

Completion

2018-04-30