Optimizing Psychotherapy for Older Veterans With Chronic Pain
CompletedNot applicableNCT03918642
View the official record on ClinicalTrials.gov Recruiting status changes often. Contact the study team listed on ClinicalTrials.gov, and talk to your doctor before joining a study.
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)
This study is being performed to compare the effects of two alternate types of psychotherapy, Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) and Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy (EAET), for chronic musculoskeletal pain in older adults. In addition, the investigators will evaluate which patients respond better to each treatment and further investigate how each treatment works. CBT, which focuses on improving coping skills for pain, is the standard form of psychotherapy offered at VA. EAET instead focuses on understanding how life stress, relationships, and emotions may cause and perpetuate pain. The investigators are performing the study because pain is a large problem among Veterans. Studies show that chronic pain affects as many as 50% of male Veterans and 75% of female Veterans. The investigators are focusing on older adult Veterans because they have the highest rates of chronic pain at VA, perhaps as high as 80%. The investigators are looking at psychotherapy in this study because VA, the Department of Defense, and the CDC recently recommended psychosocial treatments, such as psychotherapy, as first treatments for chronic pain, along with medications other than opioids (e.g., oxycodone). However, only one form of psychotherapy, CBT, is currently available in clinical practice at VA, and this study may provide evidence for making EAET available to Veterans as well.
Study details
- Official title
- Optimizing Psychotherapy for Older Veterans With Chronic Pain
- Conditions
- Interventions
- Sponsor
- VA Office of Research and Development
- Start date
- 2019-05-16
- Primary completion
- 2023-09-14
- Sex
- All
- Age range
- from 60 Years to 95 Years
- Results posted
- Yes, on ClinicalTrials.gov
- Countries
- United States
- Total sites listed
- 1
Eligibility criteria
Show eligibility criteria (verbatim from the registry)
Inclusion Criteria: Eligible Veterans are age 60 to 95 years old and have had at least 3 months of musculoskeletal pain, including the following conditions most likely to benefit from psychosocial intervention based on previous research: * regional pain syndromes (e.g., low back, neck, leg, or pelvic pain, or temporomandibular joint disorders); * widespread pain syndromes (e.g., fibromyalgia); * whiplash; * tension headaches; or * any combination of these disorders. Exclusion Criteria: * Confirmed hip or knee osteoarthritis without other musculoskeletal pain complaints; * Leg pain greater than back pain only without other musculoskeletal pain complaints (to exclude radiculopathy in isolation); * EMG-confirmed "tunnel" syndromes (e.g., carpal or tarsal tunnel syndrome) only without other musculoskeletal pain complaints; * Autoimmune disease that typically generates pain (e.g., systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, ankylosing spondylitis); * Cancer pain, sickle cell disease, neuralgias (e.g., trigeminal neuralgia), burn pain, infection associated with pain (e.g., vertebral infection), cauda equina syndrome, gout, migraine or cluster headaches without additional musculoskeletal pain complaints; * Uncontrolled severe psychiatric disorder including current psychotic disorder or severe mood disorder not controlled with medications (e.g., schizophrenia or bipolar I disorder), dissociative identity disorder, or active suicide/violence risk in the past 6 months; * Substantial cognitive impairment or dementia (Mini-Mental State Exam (78) score 24); * Active severe alcohol or substance use disorder that inhibits the participant's ability to attend session or participate in homework; * Currently with pain-related litigation or applying for pain-related compensation or compensation increase, or undergoing compensation re-evaluation (e.g., applying for VA service connection or service connection increase for pain); * Patients who have undergone CBT for pain within the last 3 months of enrollment or who are currently receiving CBT or EAET psychotherapy treatment for pain; * Unable to fluently read/converse in English; * Planning to move from the area in the next 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/NCT03918642