A Pragmatic Trial of Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy for Veterans With Chronic Pain: Phase 1
University of California, Los Angeles
Summary
About one in three Veterans lives with long-term (chronic) pain, and many of them also struggle with past trauma and mental health issues like depression, anxiety, or PTSD. Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy (EAET) is a type of talk therapy that helps people understand and express their emotions, especially those linked to past trauma. This therapy has been shown to help reduce pain and improve mental health. So far, multiple studies have tested EAET in both Veterans and civilians, and the results have been promising. EAET has helped people feel less pain, move better, and experience fewer mental health symptoms. Because of these strong results, the U.S. Department of Health \& Human Services named EAET a Best Practice for managing pain in 2019. Two earlier studies at a VA hospital in Los Angeles found that EAET worked even better than another well-known therapy called cognitive behavioral therapy for chronic pain (CBT-CP) for older Veterans. However, those studies were done in tightly controlled settings. Now, researchers want to see if EAET works just as well when it's used in everyday healthcare settings, by different types of doctors and therapists. This new project will happen in two parts, but we will only focus on the first part in this entry: In the first part (a 1-year phase), doctors and therapists at up to 7 VA hospitals across the country will be trained to use EAET. They will then try it out with Veterans to see how well it works and how easy it is to use in real clinics. Veterans, doctors, and other staff will be asked for feedback to learn what helps or gets in the way of using EAET.
Description
Chronic pain is present in nearly one-third of Veterans and is frequently accompanied by comorbid trauma and mental health symptoms. Emotional awareness and expression therapy (EAET) is an evidence-based psychological treatment for chronic pain that was developed to directly target comorbid trauma and mental health symptoms with the goal of reducing or eliminating chronic pain. Multiple controlled and uncontrolled efficacy trials of EAET in Veterans and civilians have shown EAET can produce robust effects on improving outcomes that include pain severity, pain interference, depression, anxiety,…
Eligibility
- Age range
- 18+ years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- No
Inclusion Criteria: * Veteran at one of 7 VA healthcare systems; * Age 18 years or older; * At least 3 months of musculoskeletal pain, defined using International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-10-CM) diagnostic codes, which include the following M-code diagnoses: back pain, fibromyalgia, limb pain, neck pain; R-code diagnoses: pelvic and perineal pain, jaw pain; and G-code diagnoses: tension headaches; and * Pain of at least moderate severity, defined as ≥4 "on average" on the 0-10 Numeric Pain Rating Scale Exclusion Criteria: * Poorly controlled maj…
Interventions
- BehavioralEmotional Awareness and Expression Therapy (EAET)
Talk therapy that helps people understand and express their feelings, especially emotions linked to past stress or trauma. The goal is to help reduce long-term pain by dealing with hidden emotional struggles that may be affecting the body.
- BehavioralCognitive Behavioral Therapy for Chronic Pain (CBT-CP)
Talk therapy that helps people learn how their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors affect their pain. It teaches skills to manage pain, reduce stress, and improve daily life.
Location
- University of California, Los AngelesLos Angeles, California