Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement Reduces Opioid Attentional Bias Among Prescription Opioid-Treated Chronic Pain Patients

AbstractObjective: Opioid-misusing chronic pain patients who are treated with opioid analgesics selectively attend to opioid-related cues. This opioid attentional bias (AB) is a maladaptive cognitive process that can lead to automatic, habitual misuse of opioids. The aim of this secondary data analysis was to explore the effects of a novel social work intervention, Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE), on posttreatment opioid AB among a subgroup of chronic pain patients who exhibit attentional reactivity to opioid cues prior to treatment. MORE is a group-therapy program that integrates training in mindfulness, reappraisal, and savoring techniques. Method: Data were obtained from a sample of chronic pain patients (N = 115) who participated in a randomized controlled trial and were randomized to an 8-week MORE intervention or an 8-week support group. A dot-probe task assessed opioid AB for opioid-related cues, and the Current Opioid Misuse Measure assessed changes in opioid-misusing behaviors fr...