We're recruiting volunteers to take part in the research
At least one quarter of the Spanish population regularly suffers from back pain and almost 60% experience it from time to time, particularly those who work in offices. In fact, according to UOC researchers, it is the direct cause of over 11% of all time off work. An interdisciplinary research team from the University has developed two apps aimed at helping people cope with this problem: PositiveThinking and PositiveDistract.
With the intention of performing a one-month pilot test for each app, with at least 15 participants, the research team is looking for people who frequently suffer from back and/or neck pain and would like to volunteer to test the apps and report their experience. If you would like to take part, please write to ipd_cl_laboral@uoc.edu.
The PositiveThinking app targets what is known as cognitive restructuring, which consists of identifying negative thoughts – in this case, related with pain – and challenging them. “The idea is to stop the iteration of recurring anxiety about a problem, for example, about this type of pain. The goal is to deconstruct negative thinking and help put things into perspective, generating a more positive attitude”, explained the project’s principal investigator, Beatriz Sora, from the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences and the eHealth Lab. In the case of the second app, PositiveDistract, its aim is to distract: “the more attention you pay to a stimulus, the more important it becomes. Our aim is to help focus on other stimuli, so that less attention is paid to this type of pain”, Sora outlined. The apps work by first asking users how they feel, and subsequently go on to ask a series of challenging questions, helping users to reflect and try and change their emotional state.
Alongside Beatriz Sora, the project’s research team includes Jordi Conesa and David Gañan, from the Faculty of Computer Science, Multimedia and Telecommunications’ SmartLearn research group; Rubén Nieto and Gemma Ruiz, from the Faculty of Health Sciences’ eHealth Lab research group; Antoni Pérez-Navarro, from the IN3’s Internet Computing & Systems Optimization (ICSO) research group; and Francesc Saigí, from the Faculty of Health Sciences’ Interdisciplinary research group on ICT (I2TIC).
The project is funded by the “la Caixa” Banking Foundation, awarded through the UOC’s interdisciplinary research programme.