Acupuncture Approaches for Chronic Pain (AADDOPT-2)

Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Status: Completed

Conditions: Back Pain; Osteoarthritis; Chronic Pain; Neck Pain

Treatments: Procedure: Individual Acupuncture; Procedure: Group/Community Acupuncture

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02456727

2014-4192

AD-1402-10857 (Other Identifier)

Details and patient eligibility

About

Chronic pain is a major public health problem that places many burdens on individuals, including impairment of physical and psychological functioning, lost productivity, and side effects of medications used to treat pain. There is also substantial evidence that minority populations differ both in prevalence and outcomes of chronic pain; access to care is a key component in these differences. Strong evidence now supports the use of acupuncture in the treatment of chronic pain conditions, including when provided in the primary care setting to participants from ethnically diverse, medically underserved populations. Acupuncture is slowly being integrated into pain management in many conventional health care settings, but cost and reimbursement for this service remain obstacles to offering acupuncture, especially in primary care and safety net settings. Because group acupuncture can be offered at much lower cost, demonstrating that individual and group delivery are equally effective could reduce barriers to use of this effective pain management approach.

The primary aim of this study will be to evaluate whether acupuncture delivered in the group setting for participants with chronic pain is equal to acupuncture delivered in the individual setting. A secondary objective will be to use qualitative analysis to understand and describe the participants' experience of both acupuncture approaches, and to utilize this data to inform intervention delivery and dissemination, to better incorporate the participants' perspective.

Enrollment: 779 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 21+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Referred by a primary care provider from one of our participating primary care health centers
• Provider-documented diagnosis of osteoarthritis (any joint), neck pain, OR back pain
• Self-reported pain score of ≥4 for at least 3 months prior to program entry
• Able to provide consent for treatment and data collection in either English or Spanish

Exclusion criteria

• < 21 years of age
• Chronic pain not documented OR self reported pain of ≥4 for less than 3 months.
• Currently taking oral or injectable anticoagulants.
• Lack of contact information OR unavailable for duration of entire treatment period (24 weeks)
• Inability to consent to treatment and data collection.
• Active psychosis
• Active substance abuse

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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779 participants in 2 patient groups

Individual Acupuncture

Active Comparator group

Description:

Participants will be treated weekly with individual acupuncture treatment sessions for 12 consecutive weeks. Quality of life assessments will be taken at intervals during treatment and post-treatment.

Treatment:

Procedure: Individual Acupuncture

Group/Community Acupuncture

Active Comparator group

Description:

Participants will be treated weekly with group acupuncture treatments sessions for 12 consecutive weeks. Quality of life assessments will be taken at intervals during treatment and post-treatment.

Treatment:

Procedure: Group/Community Acupuncture