Applicability and Effectiveness of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy in Patients with Chronic Pain (Atena Editora)

Abstract

In recent decades, chronic pain has been the object of study by health researchers around the world, in an attempt to understand the origins and treatments of this symptom, which affects, on average, 30% of the world's population. Goal: in this sense, the objective was to understand the treatment processes for chronic pain from the Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy approach and its effectiveness in these patients. Method: the method used was the integrative literature review, in which procedures were used to collect articles from research with an empirical method, published in the Scielo, Pepsic, Bvspsi and Pubmed databases. Results: the results found were significantly relevant, considering that the interventions adopted with Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy helped patients to reduce the main manifestations related to chronic pain, such as: beliefs of incapacity and physical and emotional limitation; depressive and anxiety symptoms; social and work withdrawals; improved sleep and quality of life; reduction in the perception of chronic pain intensity and decrease in recurrent pain. The effectiveness of such interventions has been demonstrated in the literature through experimental studies. Conclusion: it was concluded that Psychology has a fundamental role in the treatment of patients with chronic pain, and the interventions adopted by Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy are effective in most cases, however, more studies need to be adopted for a greater proof of the effectiveness of such interventions.