Animal-assisted Therapy for Children and Adolescents With Chronic Pain

NCT ID: NCT04171336

Last Updated: 2021-05-18

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: COMPLETED
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 3 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2020-09-05
• Study Completion Date: 2021-05-02

Brief Summary

Chronic pain is highly prevalent in children and adolescents, up to one in four children will develop pain that persists or recurs for three or more months. Chronic pain is not only linked to significant psychological, physical, and social concerns for affected children and their families, but also places an enormous burden on healthcare systems - in the United States, chronic pain costs around $19.5 billion dollars each year and ranks among the most expensive pediatric health problems. Chronic pain significantly decreases quality of life and is associated with numerous missing days at school or at work.

Several interventions exist, however, for some, the risk-benefit profile is not favorable, or the effect sizes are small and the clinical effect can be questioned. In general, a multidisciplinary approach that includes medical, psychological, and physiological aspects has been shown to be most promising in the treatment of chronic pain in children and adolescents.

Clinical impressions suggest that an Animal-assisted Therapy (AAT) intervention could be promising, but to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the effectiveness of an AAT intervention for children and adolescents with chronic pain. With this pragmatic trials investigators aim to investigate the pre- and post-intervention differences in pain levels, levels of emotional distress, and quality of life within participants with chronic pain.

Conditions

Chronic Pain

Study Design

• Allocation Method: NA
• Intervention Model: SINGLE_GROUP
• Primary Study Purpose: TREATMENT
• Blinding Strategy: NONE

Study Groups

Animal-assisted group therapy

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Animal-assisted therapy

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Six sessions of animal-assisted intervention for children and adolescents, group format. The sessions will focus on psycho-education on pain, mindfulness, defocusing, getting active, and resources. Additionally, the intervention includes two family visits.

Interventions

Animal-assisted therapy

Six sessions of animal-assisted intervention for children and adolescents, group format. The sessions will focus on psycho-education on pain, mindfulness, defocusing, getting active, and resources. Additionally, the intervention includes two family visits.

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• Children and adolescents aged 8-15 years
• Suffering from chronic pain (i.e., persistent or recurrent pain for 3 or more months, associated with significant emotional distress or functional limitations)
• Willing to work with therapy animals
• Fluent in German
• Willingness to participate

Exclusion Criteria

• children younger than 7 years or adolescents older than 16 years of age
• Acute pain
• Allergy to animals Aversion against animals

• Minimum Eligible Age: 8 Years
• Maximum Eligible Age: 16 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Sponsors

University Hospital, Basel, Switzerland

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Responsibility Role: SPONSOR

Principal Investigators

Helen Koechlin, PhD

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Faculty of Psychology, University of Basel, Switzerland

Cosima Locher, PhD

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Faculty of Psychology, University of Basel, Switzerland

Jens Gaab, Prof Dr

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Faculty of Psychology, University of Basel, Switzerland

Locations

Faculty of Psychology, University of Basel

Basel, , Switzerland

Countries

Switzerland

References

Locher C, Petignat M, Wagner C, Hediger K, Roth B, Gaab J, Koechlin H. Animal-Assisted Psychotherapy for Pediatric Chronic Pain: Case Series of an Open Pilot Study to Test Initial Feasibility and Potential Efficacy. J Pain Res. 2023 May 29;16:1799-1811. doi: 10.2147/JPR.S394270. eCollection 2023.

Reference Type: DERIVED

PMID: 37273273 (View on PubMed)

Other Identifiers

AAT for CPP

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id