Mind-wandering in chronic pain and control participants during a smartphone-based mindfulness task

Introduction/Aim: Mindful breathing is a commonly used approach in pain management. Repetitive and intrusive mind-wandering related to pain is likely to be stressful for people with chronic pain, but few studies have measured pain-related mind-wandering during mindfulness meditation (MM) for chronic pain.

Methods: This study examined mind-wandering during a smartphone-based MM task in 99 participants (Age M =20.7 years, SD=4.03; Male=37, Female=62). Participants were classified into 2 groups: 1) chronic pain (CP; n=44) if they self-reported a diagnosed CP condition, or 2) controls (n=55) if not meeting criteria for CP or mood/anxiety disorders. Participants practiced MM for ~12 minutes using a smartphone app. Afterwards, the Mind-Wandering Inventory was administered asking participants to rate the frequency with which they were aware of other experiences during the task on a 1 (“Never”) to 5 (“Very Often”) rating scale. We examined the following four items: 1) “I was aware of pain in my body”, 2) “I had thoughts about pain in my body”, 3) “I had thoughts about unpleasant bodily sensations”, and 4) “I was aware of pleasant bodily sensations.” Group differences in mean item ratings were analyzed with independent t-tests.

Results: CP group reported significantly greater awareness of pain (M=2.30, SD= 1.37), thoughts about pain (M=1.93, SD=0.95), and thoughts about unpleasant bodily sensations (M=1.86, SD=1.32) in comparison to control group (all p<0.01). Groups did not differ on awareness of pleasant bodily sensations.

Discussion: The frequency of pain-related mind-wandering during mindful breathing may be a useful marker of progress in meditation-based pain management programs.