Mindfulness Online and Virtual Exercise (MOVE) Compared With Self-Management for Chronic Pain

Participants will attend weekly online classes (two hours duration) of MBSR for eight weeks. The classes will be delivered live online to groups of up to fifteen participants and will be led by Mindfulness instructors with MSc degrees in Mindfulness Based Interventions. The programme content will be based on the standard MBSR programme and is tailored towards key concerns and difficulties experienced by individuals with chronic pain.

"Participants will attend weekly classes of supervised classes (1 hour) for eight weeks, following the MBSR class. The exercise class will be delivered live online to the group by an experienced Physiotherapist and will consist of a range of flexibility and strengthening exercises which will be advanced every two weeks for the duration of the eight week programme. The exercises will also be available in video format on the mobile application Physitrack which each participant will be invited to download. This will allow the participants to review the exercises between sessions, record online if they have completed each exercise and in addition rate their pain experience while completing the exercises."

Participants will receive standard evidence based self-guided information which they will access independently via the members area of the study website. This 'Online Self-Management Guide' will consist of eight categories of self-management; (1) What is chronic pain? (2) Chronic pain and nutrition (3) Sleep issues with chronic pain (4) Activity and exercise (5) Pacing (6) Using a pain diary (7) Relaxation and mindfulness and (8) Course summary. The information will be presented in the form of general text, links to online resources and videos. The information in this area will be updated biweekly during the eight week programme with the participants receiving bi-weekly email reminders.