The Effectiveness of TranscranialDirect Current Stimulation (TDCS) on Anxiety, Depression, and Physical Symptoms of People with Chronic Pain

Chronic pain and the experience of living with it are unique. Individual’s perception of pain is affected by physical, psychological, and social variables.This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on anxiety and depression and physical symptoms of patients with chronic pain.

This study was a semi-experimental study with pre-test, post-test, control group and follow-up phase. The statistical population of the study included all men and women referred to outpatient medical centers in Tehran in 2019. Among them, 30 subjects were selected by convenient sampling method and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Data were obtained using the Beck depression questionnaire and the Beck anxiety questionnaire. Repeated variance analysis was used to analyze the data. The above analysis was carried out using SPSS.22 software.

The results showed that the transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) was effective in decreasing anxiety (F=8.97, P<0.01), depression (F=5.27, P=0.03) and physical symptoms (F=4.20, P=0.04) of people with chronic pain.

It can be concluded that stimulation of the posterior-lateral region of the left prefrontal cortex and posterior-lateral region of the right prefrontal cortex can normalize anxiety and depression states.