Self-Administered Acupressure for Veterans With Chronic Back Pain
CompletedNot applicableNCT05423145
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)
Many Veterans experience chronic pain, with back pain the most commonly reported condition. The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is moving from reliance on medications to an approach in which non-medication interventions, including complementary and integrative health treatments, are now a first line of care. Acupressure, a Traditional Chinese Medicine technique derived from acupuncture, is emerging as a potentially effective approach for treating several chronic pain conditions and could prove beneficial in helping Veterans manage their chronic low back pain. This study will determine the effectiveness of self-administered acupressure to treat chronic low back pain. 300 Veterans will be invited to participate in the study. All participants will be asked to attend an introduction to acupressure class and complete a survey when they join the study and again at 6 weeks and 10 weeks. The survey measures assess important outcomes, such as how pain interferes with daily function, as well as other areas that can be affected by pain such as fatigue and sleep quality. After completing the first survey, half of the participants will receive a tablet computer with an app that shows them how to self-administer acupressure for low back pain and will be asked to do daily acupressure sessions for the next 6 weeks. The other half of the participants will receive the tablet computer with the app approximately 10 weeks after completing the final survey based assessment. The investigators anticipate that outcomes will be improved after 6 weeks of acupressure practice, and these improvements will persist for the following 4 weeks.
Study details
- Official title
- Self-Administered Acupressure for Veterans With Chronic Back Pain: A Multisite Evaluation of Effectiveness and Implementation
- Conditions
- Interventions
- Behavioral: self-administered acupressure
- Sponsor
- VA Office of Research and Development
- Start date
- 2022-10-03
- Primary completion
- 2026-03-02
- Sex
- All
- Age range
- from 18 Years
- Results posted
- No results posted in this snapshot
- Countries
- United States
- Total sites listed
- 1
Eligibility criteria
Show eligibility criteria (verbatim from the registry)
Inclusion Criteria: * Veterans enrolled at VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System * non-specific low back pain confirmed through electronic medical records (i.e., ICD-10 codes: M54.5, M54.40, 41, 42, M54.89) * reported pain severity of 4/10 that has persisted for at least 3 months and present on most days * medically stable (no hospitalizations in the past month lasting 3 or more days) * no changes in pain medication regimen in past 4 weeks * no planned surgery or injections for back pain during the next 10 weeks Exclusion Criteria: * pregnant * had back surgery in the past 2 years * received acupuncture or acupressure in past 3 months * evidence of cognitive impairment that could interfere with the ability to provide consent and follow the study protocol (defined as a score of 3 using the Callahan et al. 6-item screener)
Source: ClinicalTrials.gov (US National Library of Medicine), snapshot October 2026. Check the registry for current recruiting status. Record: https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05423145