Do Emotions and Pain Combined Affect Mechanical Pain Thresholds and Other Pain-related Variables in Individuals with Chronic Pain?

Linnaeus University

Status: Begins enrollment this month

Conditions: Pain Intensity; Pain Thresholds

Treatments: Other: Emotional intervention

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06851208

2024-07781-01 ethic approval

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to investigate if different emotional states could influence mechanical pain thresholds and other pain - related variables such as pain tolerance, pain intensity and pain - related negative affect in individuals with chronic pain.

Full description

Participants with chronic pain will be randomized into 4 different groups watching different short video-clips (2.20 min), while at the same time experience short-lasting, experimentally induced pain. 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, pain tolerance, pain intensity and pain-related negative affect will be measured with an algometer before and after the video-clip combined with experimental pain interventions.

Enrollment: 180 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 19+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

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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180 participants in 1 patient group

Experimental: Negative emotion, positive emotion, neutral emotion, control with experimental pain

Experimental group

Description:

Arm Description: The intervention includes either a negatively emotionally valenced video, a positively emotionally valenced video, a neutrally emotionally valenced video and experimental pain from the cold pressor test that are simultaneosly applied.

Treatment:

Other: Emotional intervention

Other: Emotional intervention

Other: Emotional intervention