How Does Mindfulness Meditation Buffer the Negative Effects of Pain and Suffering in the COVID-19 World? (Pain Sample)

The University of Queensland

Status: Completed

Conditions: Pain, Intractable; Pain, Chronic

Treatments: Other: Meditation (1 x 20-minute guided audio training)

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04602286

2019000347-S4P

Details and patient eligibility

About

Both mindfulness meditation and expectancy effects are known to reduce pain intensity, pain unpleasantness and pain catastrophizing, but it is unknown whether and how expectancy effects contribute to the overall effect of mindfulness meditation on these outcomes, especially during significant global events such as the coronavirus pandemic. This study includes four interrelated aims that will probe these effects and interactions.

Full description

As many as 1 in 4 Australians experience chronic pain. Further, it is yet unknown the effects of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on Australians with or at risk of chronic pain. There is a critical need for the development and evaluation of fast-acting non-pharmaceutical treatments that have the capacity to target the multidimensional nature of chronic pain. This study will investigate how mindfulness meditation and common expectancy effects interact and will further characterise the mechanisms underlying these effects. Results will ultimately lead to targeted interventions that more effectively engage cognitive mechanisms associated with pain attenuation.

Enrollment: 373 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• At least 18 years of age
• Recurrent pain (two or more days in the last month)
• Chronic pain (pain most days in the last three months)
• Able to read and understand English

Exclusion criteria

• Not experiencing recurrent or chronic pain
• Incomplete or invalid data (response time < 32 minutes, failing attention checks)
• Completing the 20-minute training module in < 18 minutes or > 90 minutes

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Quadruple Blind

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373 participants in 4 patient groups

Mindfulness meditation

Experimental group

Description:

"focussed attention" mindfulness meditation technique taught as means to reduce pain intensity and unpleasantness.

Treatment:

Other: Meditation (1 x 20-minute guided audio training)

Specific sham mindfulness meditation

Sham Comparator group

Description:

a training session designed to specifically match the real mindfulness training while lacking the proposed active elements of mindfulness training. Delivered as a means to elicit placebo-mediated (but not mindfulness-mediated) reductions in pain intensity and unpleasantness

Treatment:

Other: Meditation (1 x 20-minute guided audio training)

General sham mindfulness meditation

Sham Comparator group

Description:

a training session designed to generally match focussed-attention mindfulness meditation while maintaining greater distance from proposed mindfulness mechanisms. Delivered as a means to elicit placebo-mediated (but not mindfulness-mediated) reductions in pain intensity and unpleasantness

Treatment:

Other: Meditation (1 x 20-minute guided audio training)

Book listening control

No Intervention group

Description:

this group completes no meditation training. They listen to a spoken excerpt from the audiobook "The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne"