Project Details
Supervisor
Project area or title
Developing a Hybrid Chronic Pain and Insomnia Treatment
Description
Chronic pain is a complex disease marked by unremitting pain that lasts for more than 3 months. In the UK, chronic pain affects an estimated 35% to 51% of the adult population, with 10-14% reporting moderate to severely disabling pain.
Living with chronic pain can be challenging, as it impinges on normal life from working, driving, walking to sleeping. Most patients seeking treatment for chronic pain present with comorbidities. One of the most common and distressing comorbidities is insomnia. The kind of sleep problems experienced by people with chronic pain is typically concerned with difficulties falling and/or staying asleep. These disruptions often mean that the patients are having fragmented sleep, a reduced amount of sleep and lower sleep quality, resulting in fatigue, poor alertness, worse mood and suboptimal functioning the next day.
In collaboration with two NHS talking therapy services in England, our team at the Warwick Sleep and Pain Lab is launching a new project to evaluate the mental and physical health impact of a hybrid cognitive behaviour therapy that simultaneously targets sleep and pain. The successful PhD candidate will take the lead in designing and implementing a project that involves:
1) A clinical audit evaluating the likely demand of the hybrid CBT
2) Implementing and evaluating a therapist training programme
3) Piloting the hybrid CBT with trained therapists and patients through our partner NHS services, using a mixed-method approach.
The project will offer opportunities for both qualitative and quantitative research skill training in a clinical setting.
Theme
Physical Health and Mental Health Multimorbidity
University
University of Warwick
Specific Project Eligibility
https://warwick.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/apply/