Do Emotions Affect Mechanical Pain Thresholds in Individuals with Chronic Pain?

Linnaeus University

Status: Not yet enrolling

Conditions: PRESSURE PAIN THRESHOLD

Treatments: Other: Emotional intervention

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06836193

Dnr 2024-07781-01

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to investigate if different emotional states could influence mechanical pain thresholds in individuals with chronic pain.

Full description

Participants will be randomized into 4 different groups watching different short video-clips (2.20 min). The negative emotions group will watch an uncomfortable short video containing violence and blood, the positive emotions group will watch a video containing a stand-up comedy show, the neutral emotions group will watch a video about how to paint a house, and the control group will just wait for 2.20 min, without any instructions about what to think about. Pressure pain thresholds will be measured with an algometer before and after the video-clips.

Enrollment: 152 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 19+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion criteria

• Above 18 years of age
• Fluent in Swedish
• Persistent chronic pain with duration > 6 months Exclusion criteria
• Known neurological disease

Trial design

Primary purpose: Basic Science

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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152 participants in 4 patient groups

Negative emotional condition

Experimental group

Description:

The participant will watch a short video-clip with negative emotional content.

Treatment:

Other: Emotional intervention

Other: Emotional intervention

Positive emotional condition

Experimental group

Description:

The participant will watch a short video-clip with positive emotional content.

Treatment:

Other: Emotional intervention

Other: Emotional intervention

Neutral emotional condition

Sham Comparator group

Description:

The participant will watch a short video-clip with neutral emotional content.

Treatment:

Other: Emotional intervention

Other: Emotional intervention

No emotional condition

Sham Comparator group

Description:

The participant will wait for 2.30 minutes without any instructions about how to engage their thoughts.

Treatment:

Other: Emotional intervention

Other: Emotional intervention