Exploring the Association Between Complementary and Alternative Medicine and Emotional Health in Adults with Chronic Pain

Over 50 million adults in the US suffer from chronic pain. Chronic pain significantly affects physical and mental health, increasing levels of anxiety, depression, fatigue, and insomnia. The biomedical and biopsychosocial models of pain that guide current pain management practices are insufficient at treating chronic pain and the associated mental health effects. Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is promising, but existing research is limited on its treatments’ impact on emotional health when used for chronic pain. This study hypothesized that using CAM for chronic pain would lead to feeling better emotionally. A secondary dataset from the National Health Interview Survey’s (NHIS) Adult Complementary and Alternative Medicine Supplement provided a sample of 34,525 adults for our quantitative, cross-sectional study. The univariate analyses determined that 168 participants used their first top CAM therapy for chronic pain, while 4309 participants did not mention chronic pain as the reason for using their first top therapy. Of participants who used CAM for any reason, 41 percent (of valid results) stated that their use of CAM therapies led to feeling better emotionally. Bivariate analysis, using the chi-square test for independence (〖χ^2  〗_(( 1) )= 36.04; p<.001), at an alpha of .05, indicated a statistically significant relationship between using complementary and alternative medicine for chronic pain and improved emotional health. The phi coefficient, 𝛷 = .09, suggested a small effect. This study ensures that social workers use and recommend appropriate treatments for chronic pain with emotional health difficulties and emphasizes the need for further research on this population.