Group-Based Psychological Treatments Over Video Conference for Older Veterans With Chronic Pain

Evaluating Group-Based Psychological Treatments Over Home Video Teleconference for Older Veterans With Chronic Pain

This study is being performed to compare the effects of three types of group-based psychological treatments delivered over video telehealth for chronic musculoskeletal pain in older U.S. military Veterans. The three types of psychological treatments are: Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy (EAET), and Mindfulness Meditation (MM). In addition, the investigators will evaluate which patients respond best to each treatment and how each treatment works.

The investigators are performing the study because chronic pain is a big problem among Veterans. Older Veterans are the focus because they have the highest rates of chronic pain, perhaps as high has 80%. The investigators are looking at psychological treatments because they are less risky than medications or procedures for older Veterans. Telehealth is an important aspect of the proposal, as delivery over telehealth could improve access to treatments. CBT is endorsed nationally by VA, but no standardized MM is available through VA, and only a few VA sites use EAET, which is a newer treatment focusing on how stress and emotions affect pain. The project aims to evaluate a standardized form of MM and the newer treatment, EAET, compared to the standard CBT used widely in VA.

The overarching goal of the proposed research is to learn how to optimize group-based psychological treatments for chronic pain delivered over video telehealth to the homes of older Veterans. Chronic pain is a critical healthcare challenge for VA, because the condition affects 50% of Veterans and is notoriously difficult to treat. Older Veterans are affected with chronic pain even more commonly and severely than younger Veterans, and older Veterans are more susceptible to side effects from pain medications and invasive procedures. Psychological chronic pain treatments do not usually have severe side effects, but tend to produce only modest benefits. To increase the effectiveness of psychological treatments, VA experts have recommended testing standardized treatments with larger and more durable benefits, testing group and video telehealth delivered treatments to improve access, identifying mechanisms of response so that the most powerful mechanisms may be targeted, and determining what Veteran characteristics may predict response to the various treatment options. The proposed randomized clinical trial will address all the recommendation of VA experts. First, the project will evaluate the effects of standardized formats of Mindfulness Meditation (MM) and Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy (EAET) compared to the VA standard psychological chronic pain treatment, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Many Veterans are interested in MM, but a standardized protocol so far has not been established. EAET is a newer treatment that addresses painful stress and emotions to reduce or eliminate chronic pain. These two approaches are hypothesized to have larger benefits than CBT. Second, the project will deliver all treatments in groups and over video telehealth to the homes of Veterans to enhance access. Third, the project will test shared and specific (unique) mechanisms of response for each treatment. Fourth, the project will evaluate a set of demographic and clinical characteristics (e.g., trauma history) to see whether Veterans with certain characteristics are more likely to respond to one treatment or another. The Investigators plan to enroll up to 216 multi-ethnic/multi-racial older Veterans (age 60-95 years) with chronic musculoskeletal pain at VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System and VA Connecticut Healthcare System.

Inclusion Criteria:

Eligible individuals are

• Veterans;
• age 60-95 years;
• have at least 3 months of musculoskeletal pain, including the following conditions: back, neck, leg, or pelvic pain; temporomandibular joint disorders; fibromyalgia; tension headaches; or any combination of these disorders; and
• have an average daily pain intensity of at least 4 on a 0 to 10 scale.

Exclusion Criteria:

• pain conditions likely to respond pharmacologic or surgical treatment only when they are the primary or sole complaint: hip or knee osteoarthritis, leg pain greater than back pain (to exclude radiculopathy), electromyography-confirmed "tunnel" syndromes (e.g., carpal tunnel syndrome), gout, neuralgias, migraine, and cluster headaches;
• non-musculoskeletal pain conditions: autoimmune disease that typically generates pain (e.g., rheumatoid arthritis), cancer pain, sickle cell disease, burn pain, infection associated with pain, and cauda equina syndrome; and
• these conditions or circumstances: severe psychiatric disorder such as schizophrenia or bipolar I disorder not controlled with medications, active suicide or violence risk, active severe alcohol or substance use disorder, substantial cognitive impairment or dementia (assessed using telephone Mini-Mental State Examination (tMMSE) score <19), previously completed EAET, CBT-CP, or MM/MBSR, currently enrolled in another psychological pain treatment, currently in pain-related litigation or applying for pain-related compensation or compensation increase, unable to fluently read or converse in English, no home internet access.