Improving chronic pain management with eHealth and mHealth: study protocol for a randomised controlled trial

Area of Science:

• Digital health
• Pain management
• Clinical informatics

Background:

• Chronic pain is a significant public health issue with rising treatment costs.
• Current pain assessment methods have limitations, impacting treatment effectiveness.
• Technological solutions can enhance patient monitoring through ecological momentary assessments.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate a technology-based pain telemonitoring system (smartphone app for patients, web app for physicians).
• To determine if eHealth and mHealth integration improves existing chronic pain treatments.
• To explore the utility of real-time physician visualization of patient-reported data.

Main Methods:

• A randomized controlled trial involving 250 chronic pain patients.
• Two groups: treatment-as-usual (TAU) and TAU plus the Pain Monitor app and physician web application.
• Data analysis using mixed repeated-measure multivariate analyses of variances.

Main Results:

• Anticipated reduction in pain intensity and medication side effects in the intervention group.
• Expected improvements in secondary outcomes: fatigue, mood, pain interference, rescue medication use, and quality of life.
• The system generates alarms for physicians based on predefined undesired events.

Conclusions:

• The study aims to demonstrate the effectiveness of a technology-driven approach to chronic pain management.
• This telemonitoring system has the potential to optimize treatment adjustments.
• Findings will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications.