Psychological interventions improve quality of life despite persistent pain in endometriosis: results of a 3-armed randomized controlled trial.
Despite standard medical treatment endometriosis is often associated with disabling pain and poor quality of life, studies on the effects of psychological interventions for women with endometriosis are sparse and limited by low-quality study designs.
This study aimed, in a rigorous three-armed design, to evaluate the effect of psychological interventions on chronic pelvic pain and quality of life in women with endometriosis.
Patients were randomly assigned to: (1) Specific mindfulness- and acceptance-based psychological intervention; (2) carefully matched non-specific psychological intervention; (3) a wait-list control group.
Compared to the control group, psychological intervention did not significantly reduce pain. However, psychological intervention did significantly improve the quality of life subs-scales ‘control and powerlessness’, ’emotional well-being’, and ‘social support’ as well as the endometriosis-related symptoms ‘dyschezia’ and ‘constipation’.
Thus, women with endometriosis may have significant and large effects of psychological intervention on quality of life despite an ongoing experience of severe chronic pelvic pain.
For this reason, the specific mindfulness- and acceptance-based psychological intervention (MY-ENDO) will be digitized as part of the FEMaLe project. Well done, Karina (WP8 Co-Lead) and entire team!
You can read the complete article here.