An Online Mindfulness Intervention for Pain and Wellbeing

Abstract

Chronic pain is a prevalent health care issue that needs to be better addressed. Mindfulness techniques are a promising method to help individuals reduce the negative impact of chronic pain. Research has also indicated the effectiveness of delivering psychological interventions online for a variety of health problems including chronic pain. This thesis aimed to investigate presenting a mindfulness intervention for chronic pain via the internet. An online mindfulness intervention was developed and initially trialed in post joint arthroplasty patients. The failure to recruit adequate numbers and high dropout rates led to a qualitative study, which aimed to explore the lived experiences of individuals who had undergone a joint arthroplasty including: their thoughts and attitudes surrounding their pain, online treatments, and mindfulness. A third study trialed the intervention on a different population who potentially experience chronic pain, limb amputees, to investigate the user experience of the intervention structure and online resources. Taken together these studies demonstrated that this online intervention could be used to successfully deliver mindfulness techniques for chronic pain conditions. Qualitative results demonstrated that psychological treatments are currently underutilized in individuals experiencing chronic pain prior to joint arthroplasty. Online interventions could be feasibly delivered to these individuals to help with their pain management.