NCT04010019

The Facing Pain Study

The Impact of Facebook Support Groups for Adults With Chronic Pain: A Randomized Clinical Trial

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 119 (actual)
• Sponsor: Wayne State University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

This randomized trial will create and compare two private Facebook conditions for patients with chronic pain. The control condition will be comprised of groups of patients who communicate without much clinician / moderator input, and the experimental condition will have a clinician moderating and teaching patients several techniques designed to facilitate social disclosure, validation, and emotional engagement with avoided activities.

Detailed description

This study will investigate the effectiveness of a private Facebook group for individuals in chronic pain. Currently, more than 100,000 individuals with chronic pain (ICPs) participate in Facebook groups, seeking support from others in similar situations. There are currently some online self-management programs for ICPs; however, most lack a peer support aspect, as they are individualized, self-directed, and focus on instructing patients in how to manage their pain. The goals of the proposed online pain support group are: 1) to provide peer-to-peer social support for individuals with chronic pain; and 2) to disseminate psychosocial pain management techniques using a social media platform. Screened participants will be assigned to one of two conditions: a Facebook group similar to the groups that are occurring naturally (control condition) or an enhanced Facebook group that is moderated by clinicians and offers psychosocial pain management techniques (experimental condition). Both conditions involve peer-to-peer healthcare and support, but the experimental group additionally includes components such as psychoeducation about pain neuroscience, emotional validation training, guided emotional disclosure, and activities to overcome emotional and behavioral avoidance. Findings from this study will offer important information about the impact of Facebook support groups on pain outcomes, and test whether psychosocial pain interventions can be disseminated using a social media platform.

Conditions

• Chronic Pain

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Enhanced Facebook Condition	The intervention (enhanced Facebook condition) will consist of several training components that were selected based on pain research and platform affordances. The first component will be psychoeducation on pain neurobiology. Emotional validation training will follow. The third component will consist of facilitating patients' emotional disclosure about their pain journeys and lives. The fourth and final intervention component will include prompts to engage participants in activities that they have been avoiding because of their pain.
BEHAVIORAL	Control Facebook Condition	The control condition will instruct participants to offer mutual support and will not offer psychosocial intervention.

Timeline

• Start date: 2019-09-27
• Primary completion: 2020-04-13
• Completion: 2020-04-13
• First posted: 2019-07-08
• Last updated: 2020-04-14

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States