Feasibility and Acceptability of an App-Based Mindfulness Meditation Intervention for People with Spinal Cord Injury and Chronic Pain.
Radha Korupolu, Chelsea G Ratcliff, Shrasti Lohiya and 3 others
PMID 42583252WHAT IT FOUND
A free 6-week mindfulness app is feasible and acceptable for people with spinal cord injury and chronic pain, but this pilot did not test whether it reduces pain.
Adherence fell below the 70% target overall. A larger trial is needed before recommending it.
Key findings
01Recruitment (93% consented) and retention (76% post-intervention, 86% follow-up) exceeded the pre-set benchmarks, but adherence was below the 70% target in both groups: 63% in the mindfulness group and 62% in the health-education group completed at least 60 minutes of app use per week over six weeks.
02Both groups rated the app as satisfying: 82% of mindfulness-app users and 84% of health-education-app users scored at or above the 70% satisfaction benchmark on an 8-item questionnaire (possible range 8–32).
03No statistical comparisons of pain, depression, or anxiety between the two groups were made; the authors report only descriptive trends of reduction over time and state the study was not powered to assess efficacy.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The study was explicitly not powered to test whether the app reduces pain or improves mood; all health-outcome data are descriptive and no statistical tests were run. Neither participants nor the research coordinator were blinded to which app a person was using, so self-reported pain and mood scores may reflect expectation rather than true change. Adherence was self-reported; the researchers did not pull back-end usage data from the apps, so actual engagement may differ from what participants reported. Only people with traumatic spinal cord injury were included; findings may not extend to non-traumatic SCI. Participants had to report pain of at least 4 out of 10, so people with milder chronic pain are not represented. The sample may skew toward people who are comfortable with technology and motivated to engage with an app, limiting generalisability to the broader SCI population. The health-education control group was more educated, more likely to be employed, and had higher incomes than the mindfulness group, which may affect how the two groups are compared.
Declared interests
No conflicts of interest were declared. The mindfulness app (Mindfulness Coach) was developed by the US Veterans Affairs National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and is publicly available at no cost. No commercial sponsor is named.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the downward trends in pain, depression, and anxiety scores as evidence that the mindfulness app works. The authors explicitly state that no inferential statistical analyses were conducted because the study was not powered for efficacy, and the trends are descriptive only. The primary purpose of this trial was to check whether the app could be delivered and tolerated, not to prove it reduces pain.