"Practice Makes Perfect"? Associations Between Home Practice and Physical and Emotional Function Outcomes Among...

Area of Science:

• Mind-body interventions
• Chronic pain management
• Digital health

Background:

• Home practice adherence is crucial for the efficacy of mind-body interventions in chronic pain.
• Understanding adherence patterns and their impact on outcomes is essential for optimizing treatment.
• Digital monitoring devices may influence adherence, but their impact needs further investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To characterize home practice adherence in patients with chronic pain participating in a 10-week group mind-body activity program.
• To compare adherence between a program with (GetActive-Fitbit) and without (GetActive) a digital monitoring device.
• To examine the association between home practice adherence and improvements in physical and emotional outcomes.

Main Methods:

• A pilot randomized controlled trial (RCT) involving two groups: GetActive and GetActive-Fitbit.
• Participants self-reported daily physical activity, relaxation, and gratitude practice via weekly logs.
• Physical and emotional function outcomes were assessed pre- and post-intervention using patient-reported, performance-based, and accelerometer measures.

Main Results:

• Participants demonstrated moderate adherence, engaging in physical activity (48.6%), relaxation (47.4%), and gratitude (51.0%) on roughly half of the intervention days.
• The average duration of physical activity was 44.40 minutes/day, and relaxation practice was 11.15 minutes/day.
• Longer duration of physical activity was significantly associated with decreased depression symptoms (p=0.049, η²=0.056); no other significant associations were found.

Conclusions:

• Patients with chronic pain are capable and willing to engage in home practice during mind-body interventions.
• Increased duration of physical activity practice may be a key factor in improving depression symptoms.
• Future large-scale RCTs should rigorously assess home practice adherence and employ dose-response designs to clarify its role in treatment outcomes.