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Mindfulness meditation is a promising option to relieve chronic pain, according to a pooled badysis of available data, published online in the journal Evidence-based mental health.
The results indicate that it can reduce the severity and impact on daily life of chronic pain and the accompanying distress.
According to the researchers, this is important because the most widely used psychological technique for treating chronic pain is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). However, not all people living with chronic pain, which affects about one in five adults, find CBT useful.
Researchers searched research databases in relevant clinical trials on the efficacy of CBT or consciousness-based stress reduction for the treatment of chronic pain with a minimum duration of three months.
Mindfulness is a type of meditation focusing on the awareness of thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations and the immediate environment from one moment to the next. The stress reduction component aims to help those affected develop ways to better manage their pain.
Out of a total of 184 appropriate clinical trials, 21 involving nearly 2,000 people were selected and the results grouped together.
Most participants in the study were women aged 35 to 65 years. The pains that provoked them were essentially musculoskeletal. In almost four out of ten studies, participants had endured their pain for more than ten years.
The review combined direct and indirect evidence of the potential impact of CBT on health compared to usual care or lack of care; alertness to usual care or no care; and attention compared to CBT.
The badysis showed that there were no significant differences between the two techniques. Both have significantly improved physical functioning and reduced the severity of pain and badociated depression, compared to usual care or lack of care.
Researchers are cautious about their findings. Only one of the 21 trials directly compared CBT with mindfulness, and only 12 trials were judged to be of reasonable or satisfactory quality.
Although the badysis yielded comparable results for both techniques, the statistical error margin was wide, which means that it is too early to tell which of the CBT or the mindfulness could be better for people suffering from different types of pain and psychological symptoms, they point out. More research is needed to fill this gap, they say.
But they conclude, "Although CBT is considered the preferred psychological intervention of [chronic pain], not all patients with [it] to experiment with a clinically significant treatment response.
"Although a number of recommendations have been proposed to improve CBT in patients with chronic pain, an additional solution could be to offer patients a reduction in stress-based consciousness, as long as where it shows promise for improving the severity of pain and reducing the interference of pain and psychological distress. "
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