LONDON, June 18 (UPI) -- Contextual Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CCBT, has been found to ease psychological stress in chronic back pain patients, making their physiological treatment more effective.
Researchers think that combining physiological and psychological treatment for chronic back pain may help to improve patients' conditions and reduce treatment costs.
Stress is considered a major problem for back pain patients, and can include avoiding everyday activities and becoming generally "fear-avoidant" as a result, making the condition worse, as well as more difficult to overcome. The purpose of the study was to find if CCBT, focused on accepting pain that cannot be cured while living life to the fullest extent possible, would be found acceptable and helpful to patients.
"We know that for some people with chronic low back pain psychological stress is a major factor, and therefore there is a significant challenge to find effective treatments," said Dr. Stephen Simpson, director of research and programs at Arthritis Research UK, in a press release. "This pilot study has shown that combining physical and psychological approaches could be the way forward to treat this common, often disabling condition more effectively."
Researchers recruited 89 chronic back pain patients for the study, randomizing which patients would be recommended for CCBT and for physiotherapy. They found that patients who participated in CCBT found it helpful, and that many who were recommended only for CCBT thought physiotherapy also would have been helpful. In cases where patients received both, researchers found physiotherapy to be more effective than in it was in patients receiving physiotherapy alone.
"Our study found that CCBT is acceptable to patients," said Tamar Pincus, a professor at Royal Holloway University of London. "Interestingly many patients who took part, as well as several of the clinicians involved -- both psychologists and physiotherapists -- thought the best treatment was a combination of both physiotherapy and CCBT."
The story is published in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders.
