Mindful self-compassion program for chronic pain patients: A randomized controlled trial.

Background Although evidence-based psychological treatments for chronic pain have been demonstrated to be effective for a variety of outcomes, modest effects observed in recent reviews indicate scope for improvement. Self-compassion promotes a proactive attitude towards self-care and actively seeking relief from suffering. Consequently, more compassionate people experience better physical, psychological, and interpersonal wellbeing. Methods We conducted a single-blind, randomized, controlled trial to examine the effects of a Mindful Self-Compassion program (MSC) on relevant clinical outcomes in patients with chronic pain. Patients were randomly assigned to one of the two intervention arms: MSC or Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT). The protocols of both intervention arms were standardized and consisted of a 150-minute session once every 8 weeks formatted to groups of no more than 20 participants. The primary outcome was self-compassion, measured with the self-compassion scale (SCS). The secondary outcomes were other pain-related scores, quality-of-life measures, and anxiety and depression scores. Results Sixty-two and sixty-one patients were assigned to the MSC and CBT group, respectively. The MSC intervention was more effective than CBT for self-compassion (ATE = 0.126, p Conclusions MSC is an appropriate therapeutic approach for chronic pain patients and may result in greater benefits on self-compassion and emotional well-being than CBT.