Ongoing Studies

Comparative Randomized Clinical Trial of EAET, CBT, and ACT for Chronic Back/neck Pain

Dr. Lumley and Dr. John Burns of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago have a substantial R01 grant from the NIH/NINR (Nursing Research) to conduct this clinical trial, from 2022 to 2027. Entitled, “Comparative mechanisms (mediators, moderators) of psychosocial chronic pain treatments,” this study will enroll over 400 people with chronic back/neck pain, randomizing them to EAET, cognitive behavioral therapy, or acceptance and commitment therapy, or treatment as usual, and compare the outcomes, mediators, and moderators of these treatments to each other and to TAU control. The trial is being conducted completely remotely, recruiting participants from across the United States, therapies are being provided by different teams of psychologists who have expertise in each therapy. We are collaborating with Howard Schubiner, Kevin Vowles (who is supervising ACT), Mark Jensen, and Melissa Day. Lab member Britney Abro is a study coordinator, and students Sabrina Blank and Jacob Blank (who are not related) are participating as coders of treatment fidelity.

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Childhood Adversity and Chronic Pain among Women Seeking Care at a Urology Clinic

Our lab is collaborating on a study at the local Beaumont/Corewell Health Women’s Urology Clinic, who have been collecting intake questionnaires on all of the patients seeking care there. Lab students Marjorie Heule and Britney Abro are working with the extensive questionnaire data (entering it from questionnaires, analyzing it) from over 300 patients to study how childhood adversity is related to anxiety / depression, pain intensity and interference, and sexual functioning. Lab grad, Dr. Janice Tomakowsky and colleague, Dr. Laura Krasean of the Women’s Urology Center are leading the study.

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Understanding Emotional and Relational Processes in a Psychodynamic Interview for Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain

As noted under Past Studies, Shoshana Krohner’s dissertation was an RCT testing the effects of a single-session emotion-focused psychodynamic interview.  Those Zoom interviews were recorded, and two students, Sabrina Blank and Jacob Blank, are conducting content analyses of the interviews for their master’s theses.  This study is conducted in collaboration with Dr. Joel Town of Dalhousie University, who has trained the team in the use of the Achievement of Therapeutic Objectives Scale (ATOS), which is a sophisticated coding system of patient responses such as insight, motivation, and affect experiencing. These variables and others will be correlated with baseline and outcome data are examined for associations with other change processes during the interview.

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Living with a Partner with Chronic Pain

This project, conducted by Hallie Tankha and Liyah Marshall, sought to address questions of how having a spouse/partner with chronic pain affects a person and the relationship.  Data were collected using Academic Prolific in 2021 from over 400 people married/partnered to someone with chronic pain.  Liyah is analyzing these data fom her doctoral dissertation, examining how the participant’s attachment styles are related to relationship and sexual satisfaction, and how various other factors moderate these relationships.

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Heartache and Backache- An Online Intervention to Better Understand the Link Between Emotional and Physical Pain

This study is the doctoral dissertation of Lauren Krulis, PhD student at the New School for Social Research in New York city, and Dr. Lumley is working closely with her on it. This RCT is designed to determine if a brief educational program (based on the pain psychology and neuroscience intervention that we published in Kohns et al. (2020), and a written emotional disclosure task can improve chronic back/neck pain-related outcomes and change pain beliefs and other processes in individuals with chronic back pain. Individuals are randomized to an experimental condition (pain and affect neuroscience education) or a control condition (general health activities questionnaire), and then subsequently randomized to a second experimental condition (written emotional disclosure) or a control condition (writing about healthy habits). Analyses will examine the main and interactive effects of the pain and affect neuroscience education and written emotional disclosure on improved pain-related outcomes at 1-month follow-up.

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Meta-analysis of the Relationship of Perfectionism and Chronic Pain

Doctoral student, Valentina Barrios, of the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina) is leading this project, and Marjorie Heule and Matthew Jennings are collaborating. Many authors have noted that perfectionism is common in people with chronic pain (and other somatic symptoms / functional disorders). Various studies have examined this suspected relationship, but the literature has not been reviewed. Thus, the goal is the systematically review the literature of empirical studies that have associated perfectionism with the presence or severity of pain, and to conduct meta-analyses of these relationships.

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