Psychology

Mindfulness-based stress reduction/cognitive therapy has attained popularity as an adjunctive treatment for a plethora of medical and psychiatric conditions, however, its impact on chronic headaches is inconclusive. This review aims to assess the impact of MBSR/MBCT in alleviating the symptoms of chronic headaches.

Racial and ethnic disparities in pain outcomes are widely reported in the United States. However, the impact of the patient-physician relationship on such outcomes remains unclear.

Occupational problems are common for adults experiencing chronic pain, but occupational therapists are not always accessed as part of the multidisciplinary team. Despite evidence of benefit for work-focused interventions, there is limited evidence for broader benefit from occupational therapy interventions within the context of multidisciplinary pain management. The aim of this study was to explore the experiences of programme attendees who received structured intervention from an occupational therapist as part of a multidisciplinary pain management programme, and gain an understanding as to how they felt it influenced changes they made to occupational participation.

Chronic pain can impact on sleep, but the extent and nature of sleep problems in patients with chronic pain are incompletely clear. Several validated tools are available for sleep assessment but they each capture different aspects. We aimed to describe the extent of sleep issues in patients with chronic non-malignant pain using three different validated sleep assessment tools and to determine the relationship of sleep issues with pain severity recorded using the Brief Pain Inventory (BPI), a commonly used self-assessment tool in pain clinics. The BPI has a single question on the interference of pain on sleep and we also compared this with the validated sleep tools.

Previous reviews have reported virtual reality (VR) to be an effective method to treat pain. This scoping review examines the state of the science for VR and pain both generally and by pain type (acute and chronic) related to types of mechanisms, dosage, effectiveness, and adverse events (AEs). We searched online databases PubMed, Web of Science, PsychInfo, and CINAHL from 2010 to 2020 and included studies from peer reviewed journals that examined people with pain, (excluding pain-free participants) with a primary outcome measuring pain. We assessed studies for risk of bias using PEDro criteria. We described data through counts and percentages. Significant results were determined through P-values. We found 70 studies representing 4105 people; 46 acute pain studies (65.7%), 22 chronic pain studies (31.4%), and 2 (2.9%) "both." The most common VR mechanism was distraction (78.6%) then embodiment (17.1%). However, distraction was the mechanism for 97.8% acute pain studies while embodiment was more common for chronic pain (54.5%). Dosage of VR was inconsistently reported and varied considerably. VR treatment groups showed significant improvements in pain, particularly for intensity of pain (72.1%) and quality of pain (75.0%). Few studies examined AEs. Limitations of this review include only examining last 10 years of articles and that many studies were missing data. VR appears to be an effective intervention to address both acute and chronic pain. Research evaluating VR mechanisms, dosage, and AEs is warranted, as is further work in under-served populations (children for chronic pain and older adults) as the current evidence is largely limited to adult populations with pain.

Chronic pain in young people is prevalent in the UK. Young people are digital natives, yet there has not been any online intervention developed in a UK context to help them manage chronic pain. Key to understanding the context in which young people engage with online interventions is better understanding their internet use for chronic pain management. The overarching aim of this study was to explore young peoples' experiences of searching for information about chronic pain using the internet. This included experiences of using search engines (e.g. Google), health information websites (e.g. the National Health Service [NHS] website) and social media (e.g. Facebook and Instagram).

Disparities in access to pain management have been identified in several care settings, such as emergency departments and intensive care units, but with regard to labour analgesia, it remains poorly explored.

State regulations have decreased prescribed opioids with more than 25% of patients abstaining from opioids. Despite this, 2 distinct populations of patients exist who consume "high" or "low" amounts of opioids. The aim of this study was to identify factors associated with postoperative opioid use after common surgical procedures and develop an opioid risk score.

Treatment for childhood Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) is associated with long-term recovery. The present study aimed to investigate the long-term biopsychosocial status and quality of life in young adolescents and adults after the treatment of childhood CRPS.

Intensive Interdisciplinary Pain Treatment (IIPT) for youth with high impact chronic pain has been found to be effective in improving child symptoms and functioning. However, it is unclear how these interventions impact the parents' own well-being, as well as cognitions and behaviors which are known to influence child pain and functioning. Thus, the current study sought to determine the effect of IIPT on parent mental health, cognitions, and behaviors in parents of youth attending IIPT with their child.