PainRelief.com Interview with:
Beth Darnall, PhD
Director, Stanford Pain Relief Innovations Lab
Associate Professor, Stanford University School of Medicine
Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine
Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (by courtesy)
Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute (affiliate faculty)
Palo Alto, CA 94304

PainRelief.com:  What is the background for this study?  What are the main findings?

Best pain care integrates patient education and tools to help them manage pain and reduce their symptoms¹. Multi-session psychological or “behavioral” pain treatment approaches, such as 8-session cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), are effective for equipping people with pain management skills. However, our prior research showed that patient access to these treatments is often poor, in part due to the costs and time burdens (e.g., up to 16 hours of treatment time).²

Findings from our study suggest that a one-time 2-hour pain relief skills class (“Empowered Relief”) was non-inferior to 8-session CBT for reducing multiple symptoms, including pain catastrophizing, pain intensity, and pain interference at 3 months post-treatment. We also found the single-session pain class imparted substantial reductions for pain bothersome, sleep disturbance, anxiety, fatigue and depression.