Skills Training and Relief for Orofacial Pain

Summary

Chronic orofacial pain conditions (COFP) are associated with substantial physical and psychological burden and are best treated with multidisciplinary approaches combining psychological interventions and comprehensive orofacial pain care. Yet, important barriers prevent access to psychological interventions for COFP (e.g., lack of providers, financial resources). This study will assess the feasibility and acceptability of adapting a single two-hour telehealth-delivered group course, Empowered Relief (ER), which was created for heterogenous chronic pain condition, into a multidisciplinary COFP clinic. ER addresses many existing barriers to assessing psychological interventions for COFP as it is deliverable via telehealth, in a group format, within a single session. This study hypothesizes that ER will demonstrate adequate feasibility and acceptability among patients with COFP. Participants will be recruited over a 6-month period from patients evaluated for an initial appointment at the University of Kentucky Orofacial Pain Clinic (UKOPC). A randomized waitlist control design will be used to inform a future efficacy trial. Specifically, new patients seeking an initial appointment at the UKOPC will be introduced to the study, and if they consent, they will be randomly assigned to participate in the next available ER course (i.e., immediate group) or the ER course offered the subsequent month (i.e., waitlist control group). All participants will provide feasibility and acceptability data after receiving the intervention. Those assigned to immediate group will provide biopsychosocial functioning and outcome data at one, two, and four weeks following the pain course. Those assigned to the immediate control group will provide data one, two, and four weeks before the intervention for a comparison group. Data from this study will inform design decisions for a future efficacy trial.

Conditions

• Immediate Intervention
• Waitlist Control

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Empowered Relief

Empowered Relief (ER) is a single-session, 2-hour pain management course designed with the purpose of assisting individuals with chronic pain to gain skills for self-pain management. ER is taught through a PowerPoint presentation which includes pain education, self-regulatory skills (i.e., relaxation, cognitive reframing, and self-soothing), and mindfulness skills, all grounded in pain-CBT theory (Darnall et al., 2021). The intervention will be delivered by a certified Empowered Relief instructor.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Kentucky

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Kathleen E Wakeman, M.S. · University of Kentucky

• Ian Boggero, PhD · University of Kentucky

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2026-10-01

Primary Completion

2027-10-01

Completion

2028-10-01

Countries

• United States

Study Locations