Empowered Relief for Youth: Development, feasibility and early effectiveness of a single session pain relief skills...

Empowered Relief (ER) is a single-session pain management class that teaches pain science education and self-regulatory skills and has demonstrated efficacy in adults with chronic pain. We adapted ER for youth with chronic pain (Empowered Relief for Youth [ERY]) using patient partner and clinician input and evaluated feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary effectiveness in a single-arm clinical trial (NCT05998369). Among 236 youth referred from a tertiary pain clinic, 110 youth ages 10-18 years (M=14.8, SD=2.1) enrolled and completed ERY. Primary outcomes were feasibility and acceptability; secondary outcomes included pain interference, pain catastrophizing, anxiety, pain self-efficacy, and patient global impression of change assessed at 1-, 2-, and 3-month follow-up. Over 80% of participants rated ERY as credible, acceptable, and feasible and anticipated clinically meaningful improvement. Participants reported preliminary improvements in pain interference, pain catastrophizing, and anxiety from baseline to 1 month that were observed through 3 months. Pain self-efficacy improved at 1-month follow-up. Exploratory analyses showed a significant time-by-timing interaction for pain interference, with greater improvement at 3 months among youth who attended ERY within 30 days of their pain clinic evaluation compared to later attendance. These findings support ERY as a feasible, acceptable, and potentially promising brief behavioral intervention for youth with chronic pain.