Care ally-assisted massage for Veterans with chronic neck pain: TOMCATT results
- Publisher:
- Elsevier
- Publication Type:
- Journal Article
- Citation:
- Contemporary Clinical Trials, 2024, 142, pp. 107561
- Issue Date:
- 2024-07
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| Filename | Description | Size | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1-s2.0-S1551714424001447-main.pdf | Published version | 1.13 MB |
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PURPOSE Chronic neck pain (CNP) is prevalent and challenging to treat. Despite evidence of massage s effectiveness for CNP, multiple accessibility barriers exist. The Trial Outcomes for Massage Care Ally-Assisted vs. Therapist Treated (TOMCATT) study examined a care ally-assisted massage (CA-M) approach compared to a waitlist control prior to a study design modification (WL-C sub 0 /sub ). METHODS CA-M consisted of in-person training for veteran/care-ally dyads to learn a standardized 30-minue massage routine, instructional DVD, and printed treatment manual. Participants were to complete three care ally-assisted massage sessions weekly for 12-weeks. Outcomes collected at baseline, 1-, 3-, and 6-months included validated measures of neck pain severity and associated disability. Linear mixed-model approaches were used for analysis with 3-months as the primary outcome timepoint. RESULTS Participants (N 203) were 56.7 14 years old, 75 White, 15 female, and 75 married/partnered. Among 102 CA-M participants, 45 did not attend the in-person training and subsequently withdrew from the study and were more likely to be younger (p .016) and employed (p .004). Compared to WL-C sub 0 /sub , CA-M participants had statistically significant reductions in pain-related disability at 3-months (-3.4, 95 CI [-5.8, -1.0] p .006) and 6-months (-4.6, 95 CI [-7.0, -2.1] p andlt .001) and pain severity at 3-months (-1.3, 95 CI [-1.9, -0.8] p andlt .001) and 6-months (-1.0, 95 CI [-1.6, -0.4] p .007), respectively. CONCLUSION In this analysis, CA-M led to greater reductions in CNP with disability and pain severity compared to WL-C sub 0 /sub , despite treatment engagement and retention challenges. Future work is needed to determine how to better engage Veterans and their care-allies to attend CA-M training.
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