Table 3.

EDU procedural element themes and sample extracts from the post-treatment, semi-structured interviews

Themes	Example
Information/Knowledge
The Gate Control Theory	“When we was talking about that gate, that narrowing that gate and opening that gate, how we could open that gate our own self instead of narrowing that gate. Now, I really liked that part the most because it gave me the idea that I can make this pain worser or either I can make this pain better.” (46 year-old, AA female)
Types of Pain	“Because before I took the group, I didn’t know none of that – all the types of pain we talked about and stuff.” (48 year-old, AA female)
Sleep Hygiene	“We learned about the sleep patterns and what we should and shouldn’t do before we go to bed.” (45 year-old, WA female)
Communication	“The communication part has helped me to talk and communicate with my family peoples, the ones that are inside the home with me, and to communicate with peoples in general. If I’m not having a good day or whatnot, it just helps me to communicate with everybody to not just blurt out something because a lot of times you can hurt somebody’s feelings by doing that.” (46 year-old, AA female)
Importance of Physical Activity	“What I learned is that when you’re dealing with chronic pain, you need to try to get up, you need to try to stretch those muscles, you need to try to exercise. You need to try to do something to build your muscle mass up so that way it’ll take the pressure off other parts of your body.” (35 year-old, AA male)
Emotions Associated with Pain	“The one that I learned was mostly to deal with my anxieties and depression, because I really had to work hard at that because I would lash out at people when I was in pain and I had to learn how to control that and just try to talk about it more, be more open. I was thinking that they could see my pain, and they couldn’t. I would close myself off, but once I started opening up and talking about it, I could feel the pressure easing off of me.” (47 year-old, AA female)
Treatment Facilitators
Forms	“…the jotting down would kind of like refresh your memory of what you talked about.” (55 year-old, AA female)
Notebooks	“Without this notebook, I promise you I didn’t know none of this stuff was going on… My book’s helping me in every way to learn more about the facts of chronic pain and how to deal with it.” (46 year-old, AA female)