Predictors of outcomes following interdisciplinary acceptance and commitment therapy for chronic pain: profiling psychological flexibility

Article


Yu, L., McCracken, L. and Scott, W. 2022. Predictors of outcomes following interdisciplinary acceptance and commitment therapy for chronic pain: profiling psychological flexibility. European Journal of Pain. 26 (7), pp. 1448-1459. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejp.1972
TypeArticle
TitlePredictors of outcomes following interdisciplinary acceptance and commitment therapy for chronic pain: profiling psychological flexibility
AuthorsYu, L., McCracken, L. and Scott, W.
Abstract

Background: Growing evidence demonstrates the benefit of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) for people with chronic pain. However, there remain people with chronic pain who do not benefit from ACT, and predicting treatment response is difficult.
Aims: This aim of this study was to investigate if baseline psychological flexibility (PF) profiles predict responses to an ACT-based pain management programme.
Methods: Data from 415 participants attending an interdisciplinary pain management programme were included. Participants completed measures of PF processes and outcomes pre- and post-treatment. Latent profile analysis was used to identify subgroups of participants based on their baseline PF scores. ANOVAs were conducted to compare subgroups of participants on outcome variables at baseline, and changes from pre- to post-treatment.
Results: Three subgroups of participants were identified: (a) low PF, (b) low openness and (c) high awareness and action. The three subgroups significantly differed on all outcome measures at pre-treatment, supporting the clinical relevance of these PF profiles. However, participants with different baseline PF profiles did not appear to differ in terms of changes in outcome variables.
Conclusions: People with chronic pain demonstrate different PF profiles, but appear to respond to ACT similarly regardless of these profiles. Future studies with a more individualized focus are needed to further understand which components of ACT work for whom on which outcome and how.
Significance: There remain people with chronic pain who do not benefit from acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and predicting treatment response is difficult. This is the first study to identify psychological flexibility (PF) profiles along multiple PF processes using latent class analysis, and the first longitudinal study to investigate PF profiles in relation to outcomes in ACT for chronic pain. The findings contribute to the understanding of theoretically consistent predictors of outcomes in ACT, which in turn can inform treatment development.

KeywordsAnesthesiology; Pain Medicine
Research GroupApplied Health Psychology group
PublisherWiley
JournalEuropean Journal of Pain
ISSN1090-3801
Electronic1532-2149
Publication dates
Online16 May 2022
Print31 Aug 2022
Publication process dates
Deposited25 May 2022
Accepted08 May 2022
Submitted03 Nov 2021
Output statusPublished
Publisher's version
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Copyright Statement

© 2022 The Authors. European Journal of Pain published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Pain Federation - EFIC®.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1002/ejp.1972
Web of Science identifierWOS:000795833000001
LanguageEnglish
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