Pain Management Approaches in the Context of Integrated Health Care

Posted 6/30/2022 (updated 2/21/2024)

Chronic pain is a prevalent and complex disorder, frequently associated with depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, and substance use disorder (SUD), often treated in primary care settings. Conventional medical approaches have failed to identify effective and long-lasting approaches for managing chronic pain and often fail to consider the multiple domains that influence overall health and can contribute to the pain experience. Viewing chronic pain through a biopsychosocial lens instead of a purely biomedical one facilitates adopting a practical integrated management approach.  

There is mounting evidence that behavioral interventions such as motivational interviewing combined with mindfulness-based, cognitive-behavioral interventions and exercise are effective strategies for managing patients with comorbidities of chronic pain, depression, and SUD in primary care. Integrated delivery of behavioral interventions via group sessions, computers, and smartphones may increase patient access to treatment; save time and cost; reduce stigma, patient distress, family burden, and healthcare fragmentation; and amplify conventional treatments. During this session, Dr. Patricia Bruckenthal will review an integrated behavioral health model using a patient-centered approach that can be incorporated into a variety of healthcare settings covering topics such as:  

  • Illustrating chronic pain as a triple public health concern  
  • Prevalence and impact of chronic pain,   
  • Tragic crisis of opioid use disorder,  
  • The co-morbid intersection of behavioral health disorders;  
  • Discussing the concept of integrated health care as it relates to chronic pain; and   
  • Describing the holistic patient-centered approaches to integrated care for persons with chronic pain.