Personalizing Veteran Pain Care: Adapting Coaching Interventions to Support Maintenance of Self-Care

Half of all Veterans who seek care from the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) experience chronic musculoskeletal pain. First-line treatment for chronic pain should include nonpharmacological interventions. Although Veterans have access to these interventions, there is no standardized process to personalize them to meet the needs of individual Veterans despite the fact that personalization and self-care are key components of the VHA's Stepped Care Model for pain management. This proposal seeks to adapt and evaluate a coaching intervention that will be a personalized approach to help Veterans develop and maintain pain self-care plans. The proposed research responds to VHA's strategic objectives to tailor service delivery (obj. 2.2) and develop or adapt interventions that improve Veteran outcomes (obj. 2.4).