An Online Therapeutic Intervention for Veterans Patients Suffering with Chronic Pain

Chronic pain affects a large proportion of veterans. Initially, the solution to this medical illness was pnwhling pharmacological medical prescriptions. However, opioid-based medication can lead to overuse or misuse. Thus, the Veteran's Health Administration (VI IA) is interested in non-pharmacological approaches that target both pain management and chronic pain-related functional issues. A solution adopted by the VHA is providing Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for chronic pain veterans, This manuscript describes a project to develop and evaluate Veteran ACT for Chronic Pain (VACT-CP), an online therapy conducted by an embodied conversational agent (ECA) portraying a mental healthcare coach tasked to lessen the effects of chronic pain and improve functioning.