The Experience of Pain and Acceptability of Remote Interventions for the Management of this

Packham, Anna and Murray, Craig and Eccles, Fiona (2024) The Experience of Pain and Acceptability of Remote Interventions for the Management of this. PhD thesis, Lancaster University.

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Abstract

This thesis is concerned with the experiences of phantom limb pain and the psychological management of chronic pain, comprising of a literature review, research paper and critical appraisal of the research. The literature review was a mixed methods review of the acceptability of remotely delivered psychological therapy for chronic pain. The results from 67 studies were synthesised concerned with pre-intervention attitudes of interventions, experience of engaging with the interventions and adherence to them. Clinical implications from the findings are discussed. Focus was given to recommendations for future researchers exploring the acceptability of remote interventions and the delivery of these. The empirical study explored the experiences of people with phantom limb pain. This was concerned with how they made sense of the condition from a psychological perspective, views on the role of psychology in the management of the pain and openness to psychological therapy. Eight participants were interviewed and the data was analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Four themes were developed from the data: (1) ‘Everybody just thinks you’re some kind of freak’: Making personal and social sense of phantom limb pain; (2) ‘If you talk about them, they seem to come’: Perceiving phantom limb pain as an externalised threat; (3) ‘The sooner you accept things, truthfully accept things, then life becomes better’: achieving acceptance through gaining new perspective and having autonomy over current circumstances; (4) the unrecognised role of psychology in managing phantom limb pain. The findings are discussed in relation to existing literature and clinical implications are highlighted. The critical appraisal describes the research process, considering challenges faced, strengths and limitations of the research, along with reflections on the experience of conducting this research.