In addition to experiencing chronic pain, disability, and diminished quality of life, individuals with chronic migraine face critical access barriers to traditional, validated, clinic-based behavioral headache treatments (eg, availability of trained therapists, cost, absences from work). Internet-based and mHealth technologies show promise for the treatment of chronic pain conditions and are primed to address barriers to treatment, but have not yet been optimally translated into interventions for chronic migraine. A program of development is proposed to transform a validated, 8-week Internet-based pain-coping skills training (PCST) program (PainCOACH I; original) into a version specific for chronic migraine.
PainCOACH I was designed to retain key therapeutic components of in-clinic protocols and includes 8 modules of self-directed, tailored, interactive training in cognitive behavioral pain coping skills. A "virtual coach" provides verbal and visual instruction, feedback, and encouragement guided by theoretically-based learning principles. PainCOACH I has been successfully tested for populations with osteoarthritis and cancer pain, and has been studied in the US and Australia.
This clinical trial registration pertains only to Aim 4 of the study. In Aim 4 subjects (n=144) will be recruited to participate in a randomized, controlled trial of the PainCOACH Migraine program (versus Medical Treatment as Usual) to demonstrate its feasibility, acceptability and engagement, and promise.
