Telehealth For Patients With Chronic Pain: Exploring A Successful And An Unsuccessful Outcome

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is effective for treating chronic pain, but little is known about the mechanisms that might facilitate or hinder its utility when delivered by video-conference. In a single-case experimental design, we explored the outcomes of two adults with chronic pain who were provided with video-conference-based CBT. The goal was to examine the relationship between therapeutic alliance as well as presence felt and clinical outcomes. Therapeutic alliance was high overall for both participants; however, only the successful case's alliance ratings significantly increased over treatment. Levels of presence felt in videoconferencing were also high, but were not related to therapy outcome.