A Trial of Brief Physiotherapy Informed by Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Chronic Low Back Pain: the PACT Study
CompletedNot applicableNCT02409420
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This study has no listed site in Canada in this snapshot. It is included as part of the worldwide chronic pain corpus.
Brief summary (from the registry)
Chronic low back pain (CLBP) is very common and causes much pain and disability. It costs the NHS billions of pounds in treatment every year and is the second leading cause of time off work. There are various treatments for CLBP, but the most effective are still only moderately helpful. Most people with CLBP receive physiotherapy, with varying results. Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) may offer more long term help than current treatments because it enables people to self-manage their condition. A new type of CBT, called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), has produced particularly good results for chronic pain. However, a shortage of clinical psychologists means that most patients never receive CBT. Physiotherapists can successfully use CBT techniques with extra training, but this is not standard practice and ACT-based physiotherapy treatment has never been tested. The investigators have developed a short ACT-based treatment (PACT) for physiotherapists to deliver and aim to compare it with usual physiotherapy care. The investigators will recruit 240 people with CLBP from three hospitals in South East London. They will be randomly divided into two groups, with half receiving PACT and the other half ordinary physiotherapy. PACT consists of two hour long sessions and one follow-up phone call, meaning fewer hospital visits for patients and more time during sessions for individualised treatment. It aims to encourage people to focus less on getting rid of their pain and more on moving forward with what is most important in their lives. The investigators will compare PACT with usual physiotherapy to see which is most successful at improving people's ability to function and their quality of life and which approach helps them to manage their back pain best in the long term. If PACT is effective, the investigators believe it could reduce the considerable burden of CLBP to patients, the NHS and society.
Study details
- Official title
- A Randomised Controlled Trial of Brief Physiotherapy Informed by Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Chronic Low Back Pain: the PACT Study
- Conditions
- Interventions
- Behavioral: Physiotherapy informed by Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
- Sponsor
- King's College London
- Start date
- 2014-11
- Primary completion
- 2017-07
- Sex
- All
- Age range
- from 18 Years
- Results posted
- No results posted in this snapshot
- Countries
- United Kingdom
- Total sites listed
- 1
Eligibility criteria
Show eligibility criteria (verbatim from the registry)
Inclusion Criteria: 1. Aged over 18 years 2. Back pain including associated leg pain of greater than 12 weeks duration. 3. Scoring 3 points or more on the Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire (RMDQ). 4. Able and willing to give informed consent and attend treatment. 5. Adequate understanding of spoken and written English to complete trial data collection and participate in programme. Exclusion Criteria: 1. Medically diagnosed lumbar spine pathology (e.g. inflammatory arthritis, fracture, cancer). 2. Deteriorating neurological signs (stable neurological signs and pain of apparently neuropathic origin are not exclusion criteria). 3. Previous or awaiting spinal surgery. 4. Psychiatric illness (e.g. extremely distressed/severe depression, personality disorders, posttraumatic stress disorders). 5. Drug or alcohol misuse. 6. Prior multidisciplinary or CBT pain management at any time. 7. Other physiotherapy in previous 6 months.
Source: ClinicalTrials.gov (US National Library of Medicine), snapshot October 2026. Check the registry for current recruiting status. Record: https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT02409420