As the project s principal investigator, Deborah L. Haller, Ph.D., associate chairman of the Division of Addiction Medicine will develop the medication adherence therapy. The new program combines patient education and self-monitoring, motivational counseling and behavioral therapy. The grant also will support an evaluation effort to determine if this new therapy insures effective pain relief and reduces abuse. Pain is the most common symptom, the number one reason people go to see the doctor. The goal of the study is to design a brief treatment that doctors and nurses can use in primary-care settings or in pain clinics when they have patients who have a history of addiction, or who seem to be abusing their pain medicine.
Statistics show as many as one in five patients with chronic pain abuse their pain medications.
Other patients with chronic pain do not receive adequate analgesic medications because their physicians are concerned that patients may become addicted. This is particularly true for patients who previously have abused pain medications. Funding for the four-year therapy development project comes from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. During the first two years, investigators will focus on testing and refining the new treatment with only a handful of patients. During the final two years, a pilot study of 30 participants will test the therapy.