Thriving Through Pain: A Whole-Person and Resilience Comparative Study Using Mobile Health Application Technology for Individuals With Self-Reported Pain Challenges

Background: Pain is a complex condition and affects one's life beyond physical symptoms. National pain management recommendations include a whole-person approach that includes strengths (or resilience).

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine de-identified data from the MyStrengths+MyHealth application to examine, Strengths, Challenges, and Needs for the population and a subset of the data for those with and without self-reported Challenges in the Pain concept.

Design: This cross-sectional comparative study used de-identified consumer-generated whole-person strengths data from the MyStrengths+MyHealth (MSMH) application.

Methods: Data was collected from various community settings between 2019 and 2023 and approved by the University's Institutional Review Board. From the sample population (N=1737), we identified those with self-reported Pain (n=1280) and without self-reported Pain (n=457) and compared Strengths, Challenges, and Needs.

Results: The sample population (N=1737) was largely in the age range of 45-64 years (51.2%), Male (56.4%), White (90.5%), non-Hispanic/Latino (86.6%), and Married (74.2%). The Pain group (n=1280) reported significantly fewer Strengths (p<0.001) and more average Challenges and Needs (p<0.001) than the Without Pain Group (n=457) across all concepts. For the Pain Group, the most frequent Strength reported was Role Change (70.5%), the most frequent Challenge Nutrition (96.1%), and the greatest Need was Income (89.9%).

Conclusions: Despite reporting Challenges and Needs, the Pain Group identified many Strengths. The Pain Group identified Role Change (70.5%) as a top Strength was surprising and may suggest adaptability to chronic pain. MSMH has potential to empower individuals to provide a comprehensive whole-person assessment and resilience which may be particularly useful for those living with chronic pain.

Clinical implications: This study has clinical implications for supporting the use of digital health tools such as mobile applications for capturing contextual data directly from patients to enable nurses to provide more accessible and personalized care to patients.