Digital pain management interventions should offer tailored content, structured goal-setting, healthcare support, and focus on changing attitudes and behaviors.

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of digital pain management interventions, yet their impact on individuals with chronic pain remains underexplored. A study published online in PLoS One aimed to systematically review and synthesize evidence from qualitative studies to understand the experiences of individuals using these digital interventions in primary care and community settings.

Researchers conducted a comprehensive search across fourteen databases, including additional manual searches, to identify relevant qualitative studies involving adults with non-malignant chronic pain. Using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme Qualitative Checklist, eleven studies were selected and analyzed through narrative synthesis. Normalisation Process Theory (NPT) guided the understanding of how patients incorporated digital pain management interventions into their lives.

The results identified three main themes: making sense of the digital intervention, initiating and maintaining behavior change, and personal growth. Subthemes included tailoring interventions to individual needs, the importance of human support, and factors affecting engagement. Participants valued structured, accessible, and personalized digital interventions that provided motivation and accountability, aiding in the integration of new pain management strategies into their daily routines.

The study concluded that effective digital pain management interventions should offer specific and tailored content, focus on changing attitudes and behaviors, include structured goal-setting, and potentially involve healthcare professional support. Chronic pain significantly impacts daily activities, and digital interventions represent a shift from traditional face-to-face care, especially crucial during the pandemic.

Recommendations from the study emphasized the need for flexible, personalized, and interactive digital interventions that facilitate self-management and engagement. Further research should investigate the experiences of diverse patient groups and those who disengage from digital interventions to enhance accessibility and effectiveness, study authors noted. Understanding these experiences can inform the development of future digital pain management tools, ensuring they meet the needs of all users and support long-term self-management of chronic pain.

“Our research suggests that this reframing of perceptions requires commitment to implementing the intervention and leads to the negotiation of a new relationship with pain, enabling individuals to adapt to living a life alongside pain, in which they can identify and maintain valued activities rather than putting the pleasant aspects of life to one side,” the authors concluded.

“The ability to maintain this focus on valued living involves a continual process of acknowledging, reviewing, and adapting their own attitudes, behaviors and responses to accommodate changes in the chronic pain condition and other life changes.”