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University of Michigan / Wayne State Chronic Pain Study

Not Applicable
Completed
Conditions
Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain
Interventions
Behavioral: Pain neuroscience education patient exercise
Behavioral: Health behavior control intervention
Registration Number
NCT03391661
Lead Sponsor
Wayne State University
Brief Summary

This study is designed to determine if a brief educational program can alter the attitudes and knowledge of individuals with chronic back pain, which is likely to be non-structural in nature.

Individuals will be randomly assigned to an experimental condition (performs written educational and emotional awareness exercises) or a control condition (completes a general health activities questionnaire). Comparisons will be made to assess the degree of centralized pain features and functional improvements at 1-month follow-up. A 10-month follow-up as a secondary endpoint is also planned.

Detailed Description

Not available

Recruitment & Eligibility

Status
COMPLETED
Sex
All
Target Recruitment
104
Inclusion Criteria
  • English-speaking adults ages 18 years or older with internet access who are referred to the University of Michigan Health Service Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Spine Program identified the physician with chronic nonspecific back pain (longer than 3 months) or fibromyalgia. Degenerative changes seen on imaging are considered nonspecific. Alternatively, enrolled in the University of Michigan Health Research Volunteer Pool with a profile that includes chronic low back pain or fibromyalgia.
Exclusion Criteria
  • Any signs of a serious underlying condition (cancer, infection, cauda equine), spinal stenosis or radiculopathy, or other specific spinal cause (vertebral compression fracture or ankylosing spondylitis). Those patients who are being considered for an interventional spine procedures or surgical consults would not be included in this study.
  • Individuals receiving or applying for compensation or disability, the inability to provide written informed consent, severe physical impairment (e.g. blindness, deafness), co-morbid medical condition limiting function (e.g. malignant cancer), the use of illicit drug use, or a psychiatric condition that would limit judgment.

Study & Design

Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Study Design
PARALLEL
Arm && Interventions
GroupInterventionDescription
Chronic Pain and the BrainPain neuroscience education patient exerciseThis condition is a 15 to 20-minute exercise that patients complete in which they examine variables in themselves that suggest that their pain is driven by central nervous system processes / their brains.
Health Behavior ControlHealth behavior control interventionThis 15 to 20-minute exercise is designed as a control condition that has face validity as helpful and that relates to health. Thus, patients are asked to examine various domains of their own health behavior as engaged in over the past 24 hours (e.g., nutrition, sleep, exercise, hygiene, social connections).
Primary Outcome Measures
NameTimeMethod
Brief Pain InventoryChange from baseline to 1-Month follow-up (with secondary 10-month follow-up)

Self-reported pain and dysfunction

Secondary Outcome Measures
NameTimeMethod
Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System: Depression short form 8bChange from baseline to 1-Month follow-up (with secondary 10-month follow-up)

Self-reported depression

Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System: Anxiety short form 8aChange from baseline to 1-Month follow-up (with secondary 10-month follow-up)

Self-reported anxiety

Pain attributions questionnairesChange from baseline to 1-Month follow-up (with secondary 10-month follow-up)

Two self-report questionnaires were developed to assess psychological and brain influences on pain. The 4-item psychological attribution scale assesses patients' beliefs that their thoughts and feelings and psychological therapy impacts pain, and the 3-item brain attribution scale assesses patient's beliefs that their pain is brain-based. Mean scores will be computed for both scales separately (0-4; higher scores indicating greater belief that pain is a brain-related \[brain attribution\] construct and that pain is affected by thoughts, feelings, and psychological interventions \[psychological attribution\])

Tampa Scale for KinesiophobiaChange from baseline to 1-Month follow-up (with secondary 10-month follow-up)

The Tampa Kinesiophobia Scale (Miller, Kori, \&Todd, 1991): A mean score of the 11 items will be computed (1-4, higher scores indicating greater kinesiophobia)

Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System: Anger short form 5aChange from baseline to 1-Month follow-up (with secondary 10-month follow-up)

Self-reported anger

Satisfaction with Life ScaleChange from baseline to 1-month follow-up (with secondary 10-month follow-up)

The Satisfaction with Life Scale (Emmons, Larsen, \& Griffin, 1985): A mean score of the 5 items will be computed (1-7, higher scores indicating greater life satisfaction)

Pain Stages of Change QuestionnaireChange from baseline to 1-Month follow-up (with secondary 10-month follow-up)

The Pain Stages of Change questionnaire (Kerns, Rosenberg, Jamison, Caudill, \& Haythornthwaite, 1997): an overall readiness score will be calculated using mean scores of the four subscales. Readiness is the sum of patient mean ratings for contemplation (C; 1-5), action (A; 1-5), and maintenance (M; 1-5), minus the mean score for precontemplation (PC; 1-5): C + A + M - PC = Readiness. Higher scores indicate greater readiness.

Pain Catastrophizing ScaleChange from baseline to 1-Month follow-up (with secondary 10-month follow-up)

Pain Catastrophizing Scale (Sullivan et al., 1995): A summed score of the 13 catastrophizing items will be computed (0-52, higher scores indicate greater catastrophizing)

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

University of Michigan Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Department

🇺🇸

Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States

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