Compassion Meditation vs. Health Education for Veterans

NCT04651296 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: PHASE2 · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 142

Last updated 2026-03-30

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Chronic pain (CP) is a major health problem for military Veterans, and CP is often associated with comorbid mental health problems, including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. CP with psychological comorbidity is associated with increased healthcare costs, medication use, risk of suicide and rates of disability and reduced quality of life. Current empirically supported treatments do not always lead to substantial improvements (up to 50% of patients drop out or are do not respond to treatment). This project was designed to evaluate the efficacy of a novel intervention for addressing these challenges. Compassion meditation (CM), a meditative practice that focuses on the wish to remove suffering, is a contemplative practice that has promise for the amelioration of physical and mental health problems as well as promoting positive affect and improving quality of life. This study will evaluate the efficacy of Cognitively-Based Compassion Training for Chronic Pain with Psychological Comorbidity (CBCT-CP+) compared to Health Education while Living with Pain (H.E.L.P.) control condition, in a sample of among Veterans with CP conditions and psychological comorbidity.

Conditions

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

compassion meditation

manualized compassion meditation training

BEHAVIORAL

health education

manualized health education group

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • VA Office of Research and Development

    lead FED

Principal Investigators

  • Anne L Malaktaris · VA San Diego Healthcare System, San Diego, CA

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
SINGLE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2022-01-04
Primary Completion
2025-08-21
Completion
2026-02-04

Countries

  • United States

Study Locations

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Entities

Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT04651296 on ClinicalTrials.gov