Online acceptance and commitment therapy for chronic pain

Testing the feasibility of internet-administered acceptance and commitment therapy for patients with chronic pain: a randomized controlled trial

Status

Active, not recruiting

Phases

Unknown

Study type

Interventional

Source

ISRCTN

Registry ID

ISRCTN81739991

Enrollment

Registered

2015-04-15

Start date

2015-04-10

Completion date

Unknown

Last updated

2018-09-10

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

Chronic non-malignant pain Signs and Symptoms

Interventions

1. Online Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: The therapist-assisted online treatment program is based on principles of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for chronic pain. Patients will receive a

Eligibility

Sex/Gender

All

Inclusion criteria

Inclusion criteria: 1. Adults aged 18 years and older 2. Outpatients at St. Thomas’ Pain Management Centre 3. Chronic pain non-malignant pain (at least 3 months duration), associated with significant distress and/or disability 4. Medical appropriateness for an online psychological treatment as determined by the referring clinician 5. Access to the Internet for the duration of the study 6. Ability to provide informed consent

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion criteria: 1. History of ACT or traditional CBT for chronic pain 2. Currently receiving another form of psychological treatment 3. Presence of a serious, uncontrolled psychiatric disorder (e.g., schizophrenia, bipolar, etc.) or other impediments to treatment engagement (e.g., neuropsychological impairment) 4. Inability to complete study procedures in English 5. Inability to complete study procedures using a computer

Design outcomes

Primary

Measure	Time frame
1. Recruitment and retention rates will be recorded by a researcher. 2. Treatment adherence: Adherence to the online treatment will be determined through a count of the number of sessions for which patients submit post-session email reflections to their therapists and attendance at the two face-to-face sessions. Therapists will record whether patients have submitted these responses and attended the face-to-face sessions (yes/no) following each scheduled session. 3. Treatment acceptability: Immediately following treatment, participants will respond to several questions asking them to rate how satisfied they were with the treatment they received on an 11 point Likert scale ranging from 0 (not at all) to 10 (completely). These items were created specifically for the purpose of the present study. 4. Completeness of data acquisition: Response rates on all questionnaires and the number of missing data points will be identified and recorded by a researcher following the final follow-up assessment.	—

Measure

Time frame

1. Recruitment and retention rates will be recorded by a researcher. 2. Treatment adherence: Adherence to the online treatment will be determined through a count of the number of sessions for which patients submit post-session email reflections to their therapists and attendance at the two face-to-face sessions. Therapists will record whether patients have submitted these responses and attended the face-to-face sessions (yes/no) following each scheduled session. 3. Treatment acceptability: Immediately following treatment, participants will respond to several questions asking them to rate how satisfied they were with the treatment they received on an 11 point Likert scale ranging from 0 (not at all) to 10 (completely). These items were created specifically for the purpose of the present study. 4. Completeness of data acquisition: Response rates on all questionnaires and the number of missing data points will be identified and recorded by a researcher following the final follow-up assessment.

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Secondary

Measure	Time frame
The following clinical outcome and treatment process measures will be completed by all participants prior to randomization, and at 3 and 9 month follow-up intervals: 1.Daily Functioning: Brief Pain Inventory--Interference subscale (Cleeland et al., 1994). 2. Depressive Symptoms: Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9; Kroenke et al., 2001) 3. Pain intensity: Current and average pain intensity and pain-related distress will be rated from 0 to 10. 4. Health Care utilization: Participants will report on their number of GP visits, specialist visits, accident and emergency visits, and days hospitalized over the preceding three-month period. 5. The single-item Patient Global Impression of Change rating will be used to examine patients’ self-reported overall impressions of change. 6. Treatment process: The short version of the Chronic Pain Acceptance Questionnaire (Fish et al., 2010), the Experiences Questionnaire (Fresco et al., 2007), and the short version of the Committed Action Questionnaire (McCracken et al., 2014) will be used to measure theoretically-relevant processes of psychological flexibility.	—

Measure

Time frame

The following clinical outcome and treatment process measures will be completed by all participants prior to randomization, and at 3 and 9 month follow-up intervals: 1.Daily Functioning: Brief Pain Inventory--Interference subscale (Cleeland et al., 1994). 2. Depressive Symptoms: Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9; Kroenke et al., 2001) 3. Pain intensity: Current and average pain intensity and pain-related distress will be rated from 0 to 10. 4. Health Care utilization: Participants will report on their number of GP visits, specialist visits, accident and emergency visits, and days hospitalized over the preceding three-month period. 5. The single-item Patient Global Impression of Change rating will be used to examine patients’ self-reported overall impressions of change. 6. Treatment process: The short version of the Chronic Pain Acceptance Questionnaire (Fish et al., 2010), the Experiences Questionnaire (Fresco et al., 2007), and the short version of the Committed Action Questionnaire (McCracken et al., 2014) will be used to measure theoretically-relevant processes of psychological flexibility.

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Countries

United Kingdom

Outcome results

None listed

Source: ISRCTN (via WHO ICTRP) · Data processed: Feb 4, 2026