Reduction of Bodily Pain in Response to an Online Positive Activities Intervention.

Author: Hausmann LR1, Parks A2, Youk AO3, Kwoh CK4.
Affiliation:
1VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System, Pittsburgh, PA; University of Pittsburgh, School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA. Electronic address: leslie.hausmann@gmail.com. 2Hiram College, Department of Psychology, Hiram, OH. 3VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System, Pittsburgh, PA; University of Pittsburgh, Department of Biostatistics, Pittsburgh, PA. 4University of Arizona, Division of Rheumatology and University of Arizona Arthritis Center, Tucson, AZ.
Conference/Journal: J. Pain
Date published: 2014 Feb 22
Other: Pages: S1526-5900(14)00569-0 , Special Notes: doi: 10.1016/j.jpain.2014.02.004 , Word Count: 248


Abstract
Inducing temporary positive states reduces pain and increases pain tolerance in laboratory studies. We tested whether completing positive activities in one's daily life produces long-term reductions in self-reported bodily pain in a randomized, controlled trial of an online positive activities intervention. Participants recruited via the web were randomly assigned to complete 0, 2, 4, or 6 positive activities administered online over a 6-week period. Follow-up assessments were collected at the end of 6 weeks and at 1, 3, and 6-months post-intervention. We used linear mixed effects models to examine whether the intervention reduced pain over time among those who had a score < 67 on the bodily pain subscale of the Short Form-36 at baseline (N=417; pain scores range from 0 to 100; higher scores indicate less pain). Mean pain scores improved from baseline to 6 months in the 2-activity (55.7 to 67.4), 4-activity (54.2 to 71.0), and 6-activity (50.9 to 67.9) groups. Improvements were significantly greater (p<.05) in the 4-activity and 6-activity groups than in the 0-activity control group (54.1 vs. 62.2) in unadjusted and adjusted models. This study suggests that positive activities administered online can reduce bodily pain in an adults with at least mild-to-moderate baseline pain. Perspective: This study demonstrates that teaching people simple positive activities can decrease reported levels of bodily pain. Moreover, this study demonstrates that these activities can be administered over the internet, a potential avenue for broadly disseminating health interventions for relatively low-cost and with high sustainability.
Copyright © 2014 American Pain Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
KEYWORDS:
happiness, internet, intervention studies, mind-body therapies, pain management

PMID: 24568751

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