Introduction: Chronic pain causes attentional deficits, these deficits affect working memory and cognitive ability, therefore affecting ability to perform daily tasks, work, sleep, and cause higher pain ratings. Attention training has been reported as beneficial in the treatment of pain (Elomaa 2009). The study aim was to perform a systematic review of the literature concerning attention training in the treatment of chronic pain.
Methods: Databases were searched using specific inclusion and exclusion criteria. Inclusion criteria included formal tests of attention, review articles, randomised control trials, observational and prospective studies. Exclusion criteria included self-reported attention, duplicates, non-English language publications. Of the 2,304 publications four were included for review. We examined the correlation between attention training and pain outcomes.
Results: The results showed decreased pain intensity, interference, disability and anxiety after attention training treatments. It is uncertain based on current literature if the changes brought about were due to changes in attention.
Conclusions: Improving attention decreases pain and could potentially be used as a method to singularly or additionally manage pain.
