Effect of an Online Cognitive-Motor Control Training Program on Pain and Its Related Psychological Factors in People With Non-Specific Chronic Low Back Pain: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Non-specific chronic low back pain (LBP) is one of the most common types of LBPs. Due to the complexity of the injury mechanism in this condition, combined interventions and treatments have been suggested. People’s attitudes towards pain and the interaction between biological characteristics of people and social/psychological factors should be considered. Due to the high cost of face-to-face therapy and the difficulty of access to subjects, recent studies have used online methods. So far, the effectiveness of online interventions in the treatment of chronic LBP has not been studied. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the effect of an online cognitive-motor control training program on pain and its related psychological factors in people with non-specific chronic LBP.

This is a randomized clinical trial conducted on 44 female and male patients with non-specific chronic LBP aged 25-55 years, selected from the physiotherapy clinics in Tehran and Karaj provinces of Iran based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria, and randomly divided into two groups of 22 including training and control. The intervention was provided at 18 sessions for 12 weeks. Pain and its related psychological factors were assessed by the visual analog scale, fear-avoidance belief questionnaire, and pain self-efficacy questionnaire. For statistical analysis, repeated measures analysis of variance, independent t-test, and paired t-test were used. The significance level was set at 0.05.

There was a significant difference between the pre-test and post-test scores of the training group in pain, pain self-efficacy, avoidance of physical activity, and avoidance of work (P<0.001). In the control group, no significant difference was reported in these variables between the pre-test and post-test scores.

The online cognitive-motor control training program can relieve pain and improve the pain-related psychological factors of people with non-specific chronic LBP. It can be used for this purpose in these people.