Gathering brings relief to endometriosis pain.

Participating in support groups helps with endometriosis-related pain and anxiety

Key Points

Highlights:

• A new model of the therapeutic program refers to socializing changes mechanisms to cope with pain and anxiety.

Importance:

• The study shows that enhancing the social environment helps with patients’ pain and stress.

What's done here:                                       

• In order to define environmental enrichment, a group of experts including gynecologists, psychologists, and well-being experts produced a group of activities:
• Yoga, yogic breathing, mindfulness, aromatherapy, art therapy, music, drama therapy, support groups, and outdoor advertisements from support groups and social media dealt with the requirement of patients.
• Patients with surgical endometriosis diagnosis and people who do not have the other disease have been included.
• Enrollment, feasibility, acceptability rates of the program, and feedback from attendees have been noted.

Key Results:

• Twenty-nine patients were randomized to the study group and 27 to the control group.
• Enrollment rates were 45.3% and 69.2%, and adherence rates were 41.4% and 100% for the study and control groups, respectively.
• The most common reasons for missing an intervention were period pain (39.1%) and work-study (34.8%). The acceptability rate of the interventions was 80%.
• More than 80% of subjects would continue participating in support groups regularly, and 95.7% would recommend the intervention to other patients.
• The program was found to be feasible and accessible by the attendees according to verbatim analyzed by physiologists.
• The authors also obtained saliva levels of inflammatory cytokines and cortisol also the quality-of-life surveys but delayed announcing the results of the following studies.

Limitations:

• The study defines a promising setup for supportive therapy to endometriosis patients and the feasibility should be replicated in different regions.

Lay Summary

Endometriosis is an inflammatory disease that should be managed on a multidisciplinary basis. In a study conducted in Porto Rico, the authors designed a multitask organization to support women with endometriosis and analyzed its feasibility and accessibility.

In order to define environmental enrichment a group of experts including gynecologists, psychologists, and wellbeing experts met up and produced a group of activities for patients as yoga, yogic breathing, mindfulness, aromatherapy, art therapy, music, and drama therapy, support groups, and the outdoors. Advertisements from support groups and social media dealt with the requirement of patients.

Patients with surgical endometriosis diagnosis (29 patients) and a control group composed of 27 people who do not have the additional disease have been included. Enrollment, feasibility, acceptability rates of the program, and feedback from attendees have been noted. Enrollment rates were 45.3% and 69.2%, and adherence rates were 41.4% and 100% for the study and control groups, respectively.

The most common reasons for missing an intervention were period pain (39.1%) and work-study (34.8%). The acceptability rate of the interventions was 80%.

More than 80% of subjects informed that they would continue participating in support groups regularly, and 95.7% would recommend the intervention to other patients.

The program was found to be feasible and accessible by the attendees according to verbatim analyzed by physiologists.

The authors also obtained saliva levels of inflammatory cytokines and cortisol also the quality-of-life surveys but delayed announcing the results of the following studies. While the biological definition of the results raises interest and those results were left for future studies the setup is promising and should be evaluated for different geological and cultural regions.

This pilot study was published in the January 2023 issue of the journal named "Frontiers in Global Women`s Health".

Research Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36683601/