Internet-Delivered Dialectical Behavioral Therapy Skills Training for Chronic Pain: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial

• Published in: JMIR research protocols 2023-06, Vol.12, p.e41890-e41890
• Main Authors: Norman-Nott, Nell, Hesam-Shariati, Negin, Wilks, Chelsey R, Schroeder, Jessica, Suh, Jina, Briggs, Nancy E, McAuley, James H, Quidé, Yann, Gustin, Sylvia M
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Anxiety; Back pain; Behavior modification; Chronic pain; Emotional regulation; Emotions; Internet; Intervention; Investigations; Mental depression; Mindfulness; Post traumatic stress disorder; Protocol; Psychologists; Skill development; Training
• ISSN: 1929-0748; 1929-0748
• DOI: 10.2196/41890

Emotion dysregulation is key to the development and maintenance of chronic pain, feeding into a cycle of worsening pain and disability. Dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), an evidence-based treatment for complex transdiagnostic conditions presenting with high emotion dysregulation, may be beneficial to manage and mitigate the emotional and sensory aspects of chronic pain. Increasingly, DBT skills training as a key component of standard DBT is being delivered as a stand-alone intervention without concurrent therapy to help develop skills for effective emotion regulation. A previous repeated-measure single-case trial investigating a novel technologically driven DBT skills training, internet-delivered DBT skills training for chronic pain (iDBT-Pain), revealed promising findings to improve both emotion dysregulation and pain intensity. This randomized controlled trial aims to examine the efficacy of iDBT-Pain in comparison with treatment as usual to reduce emotion dysregulation (primary outcome) for individuals with chronic pain after 9 weeks and at the 21-week follow-up. The secondary outcomes include pain intensity, pain interference, anxiety symptoms, depressive symptoms, perceived stress, posttraumatic stress, harm avoidance, social cognition, sleep quality, life satisfaction, and well-being. The trial also examines the acceptability of the iDBT-Pain intervention for future development and testing. A total of 48 people with chronic pain will be randomly assigned to 1 of 2 conditions: treatment and treatment as usual. Participants in the treatment condition will receive iDBT-Pain, consisting of 6 live web-based group sessions led by a DBT skills trainer and supervised by a registered psychologist and the iDBT-Pain app. Participants in the treatment-as-usual condition will not receive iDBT-Pain but will still access their usual medication and health interventions. We predict that iDBT-Pain will improve the primary outcome of emotion dysregulation and the secondary outcomes of pain intensity, pain interference, anxiety symptoms, depressive symptoms, perceived stress, harm avoidance, social cognition, sleep quality, life satisfaction, and well-being. A linear mixed model with random effects of individuals will be conducted to investigate the differences between the baseline, 9-week (primary end point), and 21-week (follow-up) assessments as a function of experimental condition. Recruitment started in February 2023, and the clinical trial started in March 202