Mindfulness and decentering-induced resilience as a tool for chronic pain management

Chronic pain is a widespread and complex public health issue that carries multidimensional effects on patient health and well-being (Rikard et al., 2023). Solely relying on traditional pharmacologic treatments can present risks of dependence and misuse (Vowles, 2015). There is a need for integrative, non-addictive interventions that can aid in targeting pain and making its management more approachable. This thesis examined the relationships between mindfulness, decentering, resilience, and pain interference among 138 adults with chronic pain in Utah's Salt Lake Valley. The variables were operationalized through pre-treatment self-report surveys. Decentering- the metacognitive process of observing thoughts, emotions, and sensations from a distanced perspective-promotes the cognitive flexibility and emotional regulation that are found within resilience (Berstein et al., 2019). This practice was predicted to enable individuals to disengage from maladaptive pain-related thoughts and emotional reactivity (Bernstein et al., 2019). The present secondary data analysis used self-report measures from Dr. Adam Hanley's Mindful Interoceptive Mapping research project. Correlational analyses and a multilinear regression examined the relationships between trait mindfulness, decentering, resilience, and pain interference. Results associated mindfulness practice with greater decentering. Greater decentering was associated with greater resilience. Greater resilience was associated with less functional pain interference. There was not a significant correlation between mindfulness or decentering with pain interference. Findings suggest that resilience, or an unmeasured variable, may bridge the gap between mindfulness and decentering to pain interference. Future research is needed to comprehensively understand the relationship between these variables. Findings contribute to the growing field of evidence-based, non-pharmacologic treatments that foster both alleviated pain management and elevated quality of life for adult chronic pain patients.