PainRelief.com: What are the main findings?
Response: We developed two, eight-week telehealth mindfulness-based interventions designed to be scalable and widely implemented in healthcare systems. These interventions used recorded content by an experienced mindfulness instructor, rather than needing an in-person mindfulness instructor (which made it more scalable). The group mindfulness intervention was conducted via videoconference with pre-recorded mindfulness education and skill training videos, accompanied by discussions led by a trained facilitator who was not an expert in mindfulness. In the self-paced mindfulness intervention, Veterans viewed the weekly lessons at their own pace, supplemented with three individual facilitator calls at the beginning, middle and end. We conducted a rigorous study (a randomized clinical trial) to test the effectiveness of the intervention, with 811 veterans with moderate to severe chronic pain from three Veterans Affairs facilities. Outcomes were assessed at baseline, 10 weeks, six months and one year.
We found that patients in both the group and self-paced mindfulness interventions, experienced significant improvements in pain-related functioning, pain intensity, physical functioning, fatigue, sleep disturbance, social functioning, depression, and PTSD among patients over 12 months, compared to usual care. Interestingly, the group and self-paced MBIs did not significantly differ from each other.
PainRelief.com: What should readers take away from your report?
Response: Mindfulness-based interventions delivered via telehealth in a scalable format can improve pain and overall well-being among people with chronic pain. The results of this study suggest low-resource, telehealth-based MBIs could help accelerate and improve the implementation of non-medication pain treatment in VA healthcare and beyond. Opinions, interpretations, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the authors and are not necessarily endorsed by the Department of Defense, NCCIH, OBSSR, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, or United States Government.
PainRelief.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this study?
Response: Two collaborators (Roni Evans, Katherine Hadlandsmyth and I are now leading a new project — called Rural Veterans Applying Mind Body Skills for Pain (RAMP) — which will test the effectiveness of a scalable, mind-body telehealth intervention for chronic pain, designed for veterans living in rural areas. RAMP builds on LAMP through its use of mindfulness practices while also incorporating pain education, physical and rehabilitative exercise, and cognitive and behavioral strategies.
Disclosures:
Funding was provided by the Department of Defense through the Pain Management Collaboratory – Pragmatic Clinical Trials Demonstration Projects [W81XWH-18-2-0003]. The research was also supported by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health [U24AT009769] and the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research. This material is the result of work supported with resources at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System, Durham VA Health Care System, and VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System.
Citation: Burgess DJ, Calvert C, Hagel Campbell EM, et al. Telehealth Mindfulness-Based Interventions for Chronic Pain: The LAMP Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Intern Med. Published online August 19, 2024. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2024.3940
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2822046
Response:
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Last Updated on August 19, 2024 by PainRelief.com