NCT03844880

Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy (EAET) or Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) for Older Veterans With Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain

Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy (EAET) or Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) for the Treatment of Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain in Older Veterans: A Pilot Randomized Clinical Trial

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 64 (actual)
• Sponsor: VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System · Federal
• Sex: All
• Age: 50 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

A randomized clinical trial for Veterans age 50 years and older with chronic musculoskeletal pain in which Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy (EAET) is compared against Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) to evaluate acceptability, feasibility, and efficacy of the two treatments on pain and other outcomes, as well as potential mediators of treatment response.

Detailed description

Outpatient Veterans age 50 years and older at the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center who have chronic musculoskeletal pain complete baseline questionnaires and are randomized into one of two forms of psychotherapy: Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy (EAET), which helps patients make connections between avoided or conflicted emotions and pain, or Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), which teaches pain coping skills. Each treatment is delivered by an experienced therapist and includes one 90-minute individual session and eight 90-minute group sessions (in small groups of 8 Veterans). Patients in both conditions complete post-treatment and 3-month follow-up questionnaires. Outcomes of each type of psychotherapy are compared and mediators of treatment response are evaluated.

Conditions

• Musculoskeletal Pain

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy	Focus on emotions, writing about stress, assertiveness training, role playing new ways to handle relationships, and sharing feelings and experiences with others.
BEHAVIORAL	Cognitive Behavior Therapy	Focus on cognitive and behavioral skills, such as relaxation, increasing pleasant activities, pacing, and changing ways of thinking.

Timeline

• Start date: 2017-10-19
• Primary completion: 2019-08-28
• Completion: 2019-08-28
• First posted: 2019-02-19
• Last updated: 2020-09-07

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States