Development/Testing of SUMMIT: a Tool to Help Patients Manage Pain While Tapering Opioids

Development and Pilot Testing of LIMIT: a Multicomponent Tool to Support Opioid Tapering

There are nearly one million veterans being treated with long-term opioid therapy (LTOT) for chronic pain. Numerous short and long-term harms associated with LTOT and mounting evidence suggest they have modest or no benefit. Yet, currently available resources to support veterans to taper are inadequate. Primary care, where most LTOT in VHA is prescribed, is overburdened and straining to meet the challenge of caring for patients with chronic pain. A scalable, relatively inexpensive tapering intervention to support primary care and/or to extend the reach of resource-intensive specialty clinics would be of great benefit to veterans who are not deriving sufficient benefit from LTOT. As such, the goal of this study is to develop and test an interactive, theory-informed, multi-component mobile website to enable veterans to safely taper opioids while managing their pain.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Chronic Pain
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: SUMMIT; Behavioral: control

Detailed Description

The investigators will conduct a 9-month, randomized, two-arm, parallel, open-label, feasibility trial of the multicomponent mobile website called SUMMIT. Eligible participants will be randomized to SUMMIT versus a pain monitoring app. Outcome measures will be collected over 9 months.

To ensure rigor and successful future implementation, the investigators will: 1) develop an evidence based program with features proven to maximize engagement and retention; 2) ensure that the program includes mechanisms to address the diverse obstacles veterans report when consider opioid tapering (e.g. fear of pain flares and abandonment by the system); 3) employ a User Centered Design - with meaningful input from veterans and primary care providers throughout the development and testing phases; and 4) adhere to recently published guidelines for mobile health interventions.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 44
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Connecticut
    • West Haven, Connecticut, United States, 06516-2770
      • VA Connecticut Healthcare System West Haven Campus, West Haven, CT
  • Massachusetts
    • Leeds, Massachusetts, United States, 01053-9764
      • VA Central Western Massachusetts Healthcare System, Leeds, MA
  • Pennsylvania
    • Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, 19104
      • Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center, Philadelphia, PA
  • Utah
    • Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, 84148-0001
      • VA Salt Lake City Health Care System, Salt Lake City, UT

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

Inclusion criteria for Veterans will be primary care patients who are dispensed 84 consecutive days of a stable dose of opioids (reflecting three consecutive 28-day prescriptions) through primary care and who report stable levels of pain intensity over the past month.

Exclusion Criteria:

Exclusion criteria will be Veterans on liquid methadone or buprenorphine for opioid use disorder (OUD) and those who have transitioned to buprenorphine (transdermal or sublingual) for chronic pain, have hearing or visual impairments (not corrected with hearing aids or glasses), psychiatric conditions, cognitive impairments, or participating in a concurrent pain or opioid-related research study.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: SUMMIT; Participants randomized to the experimental intervention will participate in a Motivational Interviewing (MI) session lasting between 30 and 60 minutes with study psychologist. All MI sessions will be audiotaped using a VA-approved digital recorder and transcribed verbatim. Participants will subsequently be shown how to access SUMMIT via a set of unique anonymized login credentials and to navigate the components of SUMMIT on one or more devices, depending on their preference. They will then be trained on how to complete the outcome surveys.	Behavioral: SUMMIT; multicomponent web-based application focused on pain self-management skills
Placebo Comparator: control; Participants randomized to the control intervention will use an eHealth comparator: My Pain Diary: Chronic Pain Management (iPhone, Android). This app includes a pain monitoring functioning only, and thus will only minimally overlap, if at all, with SUMMIT's components. Control participants will not participate in a MI session. Participants will download the app and be shown how to use the My Pain Diary app and trained how to complete the outcome surveys	Behavioral: control; My Pain Diary app

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Daily Morphine Milligram Equivalents (MME)	Morphine milligram equivalents per day based on participant self report.	9-months
Minutes of Summit App Use	Total number of minutes of use of the Summit app over the 6 month intervention	6 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Behavior Intervention Rating Scale (BIRS)	The BIRS is a 24-item validated measure of an intervention's acceptability and perceived effectiveness scored on 5-point agreement scales. The total score is divided by the total number of completed items and this ranges from 1 to 5. Higher mean item scores represent higher acceptability.	six months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: VA Office of Research and Development
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: William C Becker, MD, VA Connecticut Healthcare System West Haven Campus, West Haven, CT

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Becker WC. "Clues" That Patients May Be Willing to Consider Opioid Reductions. J Gen Intern Med. 2020 Jun;35(6):1629-1630. doi: 10.1007/s11606-020-05712-6. No abstract available.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): March 24, 2021
• Primary Completion (Actual): March 23, 2023
• Study Completion (Actual): November 30, 2023

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: February 4, 2021
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 4, 2021
• First Posted (Actual): February 10, 2021

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Estimated): September 12, 2025
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 25, 2025
• Last Verified: August 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: m-health
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Pain; Neurologic Manifestations; Pathological Conditions, Signs and Symptoms; Signs and Symptoms; Chronic Pain
• Other Study ID Numbers: IIR 17-228

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No
• product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.: No