Assessing Symptom and Mood Dynamics in Pain Using the Smartphone Application SOMA (NCT05754190)
🩺 Plain-English Summary (8th-Grade Level)
This study relies on the use of a smartphone application (SOMA) that the investigators developed for tracking daily mood, pain, and activity status in acute pain, chronic pain, and healthy controls over four months.The primary goal of the study is to use fluctuations in daily self-reported symptoms to identify computational predictors of acute-chronic pain transition, pain recovery, and/or chronic pain maintenance or flareups. The general study will include anyone with current acute or chronic pain, while a smaller sub-study will use a subset of patients from the chronic pain group who have been diagnosed with chronic low back pain, failed back surgery syndrome, or fibromyalgia. These sub-study participants will first take part in one in-person EEG testing session while completing simple interoception and reinforcement learning tasks and then begin daily use of the SOMA app. Electrophysiologic and behavioral data from the EEG testing session will be used to determine predictors of treatment response in the sub-study.
Who can join: To join this study, participants generally need to meet the listed inclusion criteria (30 items) and avoid the listed exclusions (27 items).
Location: Brown University — Providence, Rhode Island
📋 "Do I Qualify?" — 1-Minute Self Screener
Instant ChecklistCheck every box below. If you can check all of them, you may meet the study's basic screening requirements (final eligibility is confirmed by the site team).
Usually NOT eligible if any of the following apply:
- EXCLUSION CRITERIA \[General study\]
- Chronic pain group:
- recent injury or surgery unrelated to the pain in the past 3 months
- difficulty participating for technical/logistical issues (e.g., no computer, incompatible smartphone, can't commit to 4 months study participation);
- Not fluent in English (difficulty understanding questions)
- Current primary or metastatic cancer (organic cause of pain)
- Acute pain group:
- History of Chronic Pain (Pain lasting for more than 6 months)
- difficulty participating for technical/logistical issues (e.g., no computer, incompatible smartphone, can't commit to 4 months study participation);
- Not fluent in English (difficulty understanding questions)
- Current primary or metastatic cancer (organic cause of pain)
- Healthy control group: History of Chronic Pain (Pain lasting for more than 6 months)
🔍 Extracted verbatim from the official NIH eligibility criteria. Always confirm with the study coordinator.
📍 All Participating Trial Locations (1 Sites)
- Brown University — Providence, Rhode Island
💰 Cost, Insurance & Patient Rights
- 100% Free Items: The investigational treatment and protocol-required procedures are supplied at zero cost by the sponsor.
- Routine Patient Care: Under federal law (ACA § 2709) and many state statutes, routine care costs are covered during participation.
- Voluntary Participation: You may withdraw at any time without affecting your standard medical care.