NCT03461874

ACT Therapy for HF Migraine

Feasibility and Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for High Frequency Episodic Migraine Without Aura

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 64 (actual)
• Sponsor: Fondazione I.R.C.C.S. Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 65 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

The aim is to compare the effectiveness of a behavioral treatment, the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, provided as an add-on to the prophylactic treatment (treatment as usual-TaU) against TaU only on the reduction of monthly headaches frequency over 12 months in a sample of patients with high-frequency migraine without aura (i.e. reporting 9-14 days with headache per month in the previous three months). ACT will be provided in small groups (5-7 patients each) by specifically trained therapists. The ACT consists in 6 weekly sessions, 90 minutes each, and 2 supplementary "booster" sessions, at two and four weeks after the conclusion of the weekly session. The main focus of the six ACT session will be the following: 1) Creative helplessness: the problem of control; 2) Identifying values: introduction to Mindfulness; 3) Actions guided by values: working with thought; 4) Working with Acceptance and Willingness; 5) Committed Actions: self-as-context; 6) Integration: working with obstacles - wrap-up. The booster session starts with a mindfulness exercise, followed by a review of the contents covered across the ACT program. TaU will consist of education of patients, followed by pharmacological prophylaxis. Prophylaxis is prescribed based on patients' profile, such as previous failures, contraindications and so on by a neurologist with expertise in headache treatments and limited to Topiramate, Propanolol, Amytriptiline or Calcium channel blockers. The study will be a Phase II Trial; randomized, Open-Label; Multicenter study. Patients will be randomized 1:1 to the two groups: 64 patients (32 per group) will be enrolled to detect an absolute difference of at least 2 migraine days/month in the experimental group (assuming alfa 5%, power 95%, up to 15% loss to follow-up).

Detailed description

Background and significance. Patients with Migraine without Aura at high frequency of attacks (9/14 episode per month) are particularly exposed to the risk of medication overuse and chronification of their headache. The treatment of this category of patients can be difficult and they need a multidisciplinary treatment to learn techniques to manage their pain before than a chronic migraine condition has been induced. In recent years, non-pharmacological treatments have been proposed for treating patient with different forms of migraines and, among them, Mindfulness showed to be comparable to pharmacological prophylaxis. ACT (Acceptance Commitment Therapy) belongs to the third wave of behavioral approaches used for different pathological conditions; the attention is focused on mental processes and the objective of this intervention is the psychological flexibility by cultivating six different positive psychological capacities; acceptance, defusion, sense of self, mindfulness, values, committed actions. Reports in literature documented the effectiveness of ACT intervention to improve disability and impact in pain conditions and to develop the resilience of patients suffering from different physical or mental clinical problems. People with low resilience are exposed to have more emotional difficulties in terms of depression and anxiety and stress, in particular when they are suffering from chronic pain conditions such as migraine at high frequency, which has high impact on patients life. It has been demonstrated that specific interventions addressed to promote resilience can be helpful to reduce the impact of the disease and of pain. Studies on the use of mindfulness and ACT in particular in chronic pain conditions and migraine have demonstrated how these practices are helpful to tolerate pain, to contain the use of symptomatic medications and to modulate some specific characteristics of migraine patients personality, e.g. rigidity, low acceptance, low resilience.

Conditions

• Migraine Without Aura

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Education of patients	During withdrawal treatment, patients are given recommendations on the approach to the use of drugs for acute treatment of migraine headache and on lifestyle issues. With regard to drugs, patients will be encouraged to restrict use of acute medications to headaches with "severe pain"; i.e., those rated as 8 or greater on a 0-10 (no pain - pain as bad as it could be). In these instances, patients will be instructed to take Eletriptan (40 mg) and/or Almotriptan (12.5 mg) as the first-line treatment, indomethacin (50 mg) as the second line, and will be specifically urged to avoid opioids. With regard to healthy lifestyle issues, patients will be encouraged to engage in moderate physical activity (i.e., 45 minutes twice per week of aerobic exercise), remain well hydrated, consume 3 meals per day, and maintain a regular sleep/wake pattern with at least 7-8 hours of sleep per night.
BEHAVIORAL	ACT	ACT consists in 6 weekly sessions, 90 minutes each, and 2 supplementary "booster" sessions, at two and four weeks after the conclusion of the weekly session. The main focus of the six ACT session will be the following: 1) Creative helplessness: the problem of control; 2) Indentifying values: introduction to Mindfulness; 3) Actions guided by values: working with thought; 4) Working with Acceptance and Willingness; 5) Committed Actions: self-as-context; 6) Integration: working with obstacles - wrap-up. The booster session starts with a mindfulness exercise, followed by a review of the contents covered across the ACT program. Patients will be trained in small groups (5-7 patients each) and guided by a specifically trained therapist. They will be educated to practice at home according to the instructions given by the therapist during the sessions.
DRUG	Pharmacological prophylaxis	Pharmacological prophylaxis will be prescribed based on patients' profile (e.g. previous failures or contraindications), and limited to Topiramate, Propanolol, Amytriptiline or Flunarizine. Doses will depend on patients' features, and the doses herein reported are to be intended as approximate ones: Topiramate at the dose of 50mg/day; Propanolol at the dose of 20mg/day; Amytriptiline at the dose of 10mg/day; Flunarizine at the dose of 5mg/day.

Timeline

• Start date: 2018-03-15
• Primary completion: 2020-07-15
• Completion: 2022-12-31
• First posted: 2018-03-12
• Last updated: 2026-02-11

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Italy