Health Coaching for Chronic Multisymptom Illness

NCT ID: NCT04157101

Last Updated: 2025-12-29

Study Results

Results pending

The study team has not published outcome measurements, participant flow, or safety data for this trial yet. Check back later for updates.

Basic Information

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Recruitment Status

COMPLETED

Clinical Phase

NA

Total Enrollment

260 participants

Study Classification

INTERVENTIONAL

Study Start Date

2020-04-30

Study Completion Date

2025-06-26

Brief Summary

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The National Academy of Medicine (NAM) labels chronic pain as one of the most extensive health care issues facing our society with "severe impacts on all aspects of the lives of its sufferers."1 Pain predominant chronic multisymptom illness (Pain-CMI, e.g., fibromyalgia) is a particularly debilitating and presumptive service connected condition for Veterans who deployed to the Gulf region. Health coaching is an appealing potential approach to improve the disability of Pain-CMI because it is personalized to the Veteran's unique goals and beliefs about Pain-CMI and it will be widely available as the VA is rolling out health coaching. The goal of this proposal is to understand if health coaching is also efficacious for a complex pain condition, Pain-CMI.

Detailed Description

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Purpose:

Chronic pain is one of the most common healthcare issues that Veterans face; it can be very debilitating as well as difficult to treat. Pain Predominant Chronic Multi-symptom Illness (CMI) (e.g., fibromyalgia) is a particularly debilitating and treatment-resistant chronic pain condition and a presumptive service-connected condition for Veterans who deployed to the Gulf region from 1990-2021 (VA Benefits Administration, 2018). There is an urgent need for evidence-based non-pharmaceutical treatments for chronic pain. This study will explore the efficacy of remote-delivered health coaching intervention aimed at modifying lifestyle factors of diet, exercise, social connections, stress, and sleep. The control condition will be supportive psychotherapy.

Study Aims:

Primary Aim 1: Determine if remote-delivered health coaching reduces (H1a) disability and (H2a) pain impairment as compared to remote-delivered supportive psychotherapy for Veterans with Pain-CMI. The investigators will also assess the improvement in (H1b) disability and (H2b) pain impairment at the 24-month follow-up.

Primary Aim 2: Determine if health coaching results in more frequent clinically significant improvement in (H3) disability (20%) and (H4) pain impairment (1 point) as compared to supportive psychotherapy.

Secondary Aim 3: Determine if health coaching reduces (H5) physical symptoms, (H6) catastrophizing, (H7) limiting activity and increases (H8) pain control as compared to supportive psychotherapy.

Exploratory Aim 4: Determine if the reduction in (H9) catastrophizing, (H10) limiting activity and increases in (H11) pain control mediate the relationship between health coaching and reductions in disability and pain impairment.

Study Design:

The current proposal is a randomized clinical trial to determine the efficacy of remote-delivered health coaching in reducing disability and pain impairment for Veterans with Pain-CMI as compared to supportive psychotherapy (n=250). Additionally, the investigators will explore mechanisms of change. Participants will complete four assessments at four different timepoints: baseline, 6-week mid treatment (\~6 weeks after baseline), post-treatment (\~12 weeks after baseline), and 24-week follow-up (\~24 weeks after baseline).

Conditions

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Pain Predominant Chronic Multisymptom Illness

Keywords

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Pain Veteran Health Coaching Clinical Trial Supportive Psychotherapy Illness beliefs

Study Design

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Allocation Method

RANDOMIZED

Intervention Model

PARALLEL

Clinical Trial
Primary Study Purpose

TREATMENT

Blinding Strategy

DOUBLE

Investigators Outcome Assessors
Investigator, assessor, biostatistician

Study Groups

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Health Coaching

The 12-session remote health coaching intervention assists Veterans in developing and maintaining health behaviors that meet their life goals. Veterans begin by discussing their symptoms, the impact of their symptoms, and their beliefs about Pain-CMI. Next, the Veteran identifies discrepancies between where they are and where they want to be for 5 lifestyle factors. The first half of treatment focuses on providing education about the 5 lifestyle factors. Veterans are introduced to behavior change/health coaching principles. The major focus is on behavior change and development of long-term healthy habits. During the last session, Veterans develop a long-term plan to maintain behavioral changes after the 12-week program and identify the skills that they can utilize moving forward.

Group Type EXPERIMENTAL

Health Coaching

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

The 12-session remote health coaching intervention assists Veterans in developing and maintaining health behaviors that meet their life goals. Veterans begin by discussing their symptoms, the impact of their symptoms, and their beliefs about Pain-CMI. Next, the Veteran identifies discrepancies between where they are and where they want to be for 5 lifestyle factors. The first half of treatment focuses on providing education about the 5 lifestyle factors. Veterans are introduced to behavior change/health coaching principles. The major focus is on behavior change and development of long-term healthy habits. During the last session, Veterans develop a long-term plan to maintain behavioral changes after the 12-week program and identify the skills that they can utilize moving forward.

Supportive Psychotherapy

Our control will be supportive psychotherapy which will focus on discussing weekly stressors in a supportive, non-directive way. Session content is patient-driven, and sessions focus on emphasizing the patients' strengths, following patients' emotional affect, and building a therapeutic alliance. Participants will be asked to generate the topic they would like to discuss for the session and will complete a worksheet between sessions noting emotional events throughout their week ("A time when I felt stressed was ." ) in order to help identify experiences for discussion in session. The control consists of 12 weekly sessions delivered via telephone or video and will be delivered by bachelor's, or master's level providers.

Group Type PLACEBO_COMPARATOR

Supportive Psychotherapy

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

Our control will be supportive psychotherapy which will focus on discussing weekly stressors in a supportive, non-directive way. Session content is patient-driven, and sessions focus on emphasizing the patients' strengths, following patients' emotional affect, and building a therapeutic alliance. Participants will be asked to generate the topic they would like to discuss for the session and will complete a worksheet between sessions noting emotional events throughout their week ("A time when I felt stressed was ." ) in order to help identify experiences for discussion in session. The control consists of 12 weekly sessions delivered via telephone or video and will be delivered by bachelor's, or master's level providers.

Interventions

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Health Coaching

The 12-session remote health coaching intervention assists Veterans in developing and maintaining health behaviors that meet their life goals. Veterans begin by discussing their symptoms, the impact of their symptoms, and their beliefs about Pain-CMI. Next, the Veteran identifies discrepancies between where they are and where they want to be for 5 lifestyle factors. The first half of treatment focuses on providing education about the 5 lifestyle factors. Veterans are introduced to behavior change/health coaching principles. The major focus is on behavior change and development of long-term healthy habits. During the last session, Veterans develop a long-term plan to maintain behavioral changes after the 12-week program and identify the skills that they can utilize moving forward.

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

Supportive Psychotherapy

Our control will be supportive psychotherapy which will focus on discussing weekly stressors in a supportive, non-directive way. Session content is patient-driven, and sessions focus on emphasizing the patients' strengths, following patients' emotional affect, and building a therapeutic alliance. Participants will be asked to generate the topic they would like to discuss for the session and will complete a worksheet between sessions noting emotional events throughout their week ("A time when I felt stressed was ." ) in order to help identify experiences for discussion in session. The control consists of 12 weekly sessions delivered via telephone or video and will be delivered by bachelor's, or master's level providers.

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

Eligibility Criteria

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Inclusion Criteria

* Study Population. Participants will consist of 250 Veterans with Pain-CMI
* CMI meets Kansas City (Steele) definition of CMI
* reports wide-spread pain rated at least 4 on a 0 to 10 point pain bothersome scale
* rates their activity limitations at least 3 on a 0 to 10 point scale

Exclusion Criteria

* life-threatening condition,
* severe cognitive impairment
* psychotic disorder, pregnant
* plans to become pregnant in the next year
* suicidal intent
Eligible Sex

ALL

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Sponsors

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VA Office of Research and Development

FED

Sponsor Role lead

Responsible Party

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Responsibility Role SPONSOR

Principal Investigators

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Lisa Marie McAndrew, PhD

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

East Orange Campus of the VA New Jersey Health Care System, East Orange, NJ

Locations

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East Orange Campus of the VA New Jersey Health Care System, East Orange, NJ

East Orange, New Jersey, United States

Site Status

Countries

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United States

Provided Documents

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Document Type: Informed Consent Form

View Document

Other Identifiers

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F3254-R

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id