The Development of Mindful-Based Dance Movement Therapy Intervention for Chronic Pain: A Pilot Study With Chronic Headache Patients

Indra Majore-Dusele; Vicky Karkou; Inga Millere

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.587923

The Development of Mindful-Based Dance Movement Therapy Intervention for Chronic Pain: A Pilot Study With Chronic Headache Patients

Front Psychol. 2021 Apr 16:12:587923. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.587923. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Indra Majore-Dusele¹, Vicky Karkou², Inga Millere¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Health Psychology and Pedagogy, Faculty of Public Health and Social Welfare, Riga Stradins University, Riga, Latvia.
² Research Centre for Arts and Wellbeing, Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, United Kingdom.

Abstract

Chronic pain is of significant global concern. There is growing evidence that body-mind therapies and psychological approaches can contribute toward changing chronic pain perceptions. This is the first model described in the literature that combines a mindfulness-based approach with dance movement therapy and explores the potential psychological and pain-related changes for this client population. In this paper, the results from the pilot study are presented involving patients with chronic headache recruited in an outpatient rehabilitation setting. Methods: In this pilot study, 29 patients (n = 29) with chronic headache were randomized to either the Mindful-Based Dance Movement Therapy (MBDMT) group or the waiting list control group (treatment as usual, TAU). The MBDMT group was offered 10 sessions in a clinical outpatient rehabilitation setting for 5 weeks. Data were collected pre- and post-intervention and 16 weeks after the intervention was finished. The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ), and Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) were used as outcome measures. Results: The working model of MBDMT identifies nine therapeutic mechanisms (safe therapeutic environment, mindfulness skills, body awareness, relaxation/releasing, distancing and staying with discomfort, meaning making, self-regulation, acceptance and integration, creative process). Per-protocol analysis reveals statistically significant reduction of pain intensity and depression scores in favor of the MBDMT group, and these improvements were maintained in the follow-up assessment. Conclusions: The results suggest that MBDMT is a feasible and promising therapy approach for chronic pain patients. The pilot study offered sufficient information and preliminary results in the desirable direction to enable the researchers to move to a randomized controlled trial (RCT) stage in order to establish the efficacy of the intervention. Clinical Trial Registration: The study was registered in the www.researchregistry.com, registry (5483).

Keywords: anxiety; chronic pain; dance movement therapy; depression; mindfulness.