The Effect of Solution-focused Group Therapy for Pain Management in Patients With Spinal Cord Injury

Objective: to verify the effect of solution-focused group therapy (SFBT) on pain management as well as physiological, psychological and social adaptation in patients with spinal cord injury. Setting: for matters of convenience, the samples were collected at medical and rehabilitation centers in Taiwan. Twenty-six patients with spinal cord injuries and neuropathic pain were invited to join the four pain management groups. Method: In the case of patients with spinal cord injury affected by neuropathic pain, a solution-focused pain management group therapy was conducted once a week for 6 weeks, 90 minutes each time; fear avoidance theory and acceptance and commitment therapy was used for pain management, using solution-focus group counseling strategies to guide group members to achieve pain management goals by accepting pain and establishing goals.The group effectiveness was assessed before and after the group intervention in terms of pain intensity (0-10 numeric rating scale), brief pain inventory-pain inference, chronic pain self-efficacy scale, pain fear (0-10 numeric rating scale), depression (patient health questionnaire-9), demoralization (demoralization scale), post-traumatic growth inventory and life quality (WHOQOL-BREF). Then we analyzed the correlation between the difference values of the variables before and after the test in order to understand the clinical application of the pain management group therapy for patients with spinal cord injury.