• Clin J Pain · Sep 2024

    Comparing Pain Outcomes and Treatment Adherence Between In-Person and Virtual Interdisciplinary Pain Rehabilitation Programs at the San Francisco VA Health Care System.

    • Emily Murphy, Tiffany Toor, Sarah Palyo, Sara Librodo, Kathryn Schopmeyer, Alan N Simmons, and Irina A Strigo.
    • San Francisco Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Healthcare System, San Francisco, CA.
    • Clin J Pain. 2024 Sep 12.

    ObjectiveThis study compares clinical pain outcomes between patients in a pain treatment program that was conducted in-person, compared to a virtual program.MethodsIn-Person (N=127) and Virtual (N=101) pain treatment programs were compared based on patient-reported, practitioner-collected, and medical record data. The patients were measured at baseline and post treatment (week 12 for In-Person and week 8 for Virtual patients). We employed last observation carried forward (LOCF) to handle missing data.ResultsBoth the In-Person and Virtual groups were similar in regard to all baseline outcomes, except the In-Person group having significantly more co-morbidities at baseline, with particularly more cases of mental, behavioral, or neurodevelopmental diseases. Both groups demonstrated significant improvements in the pain-related measurements of pain interference and pain catastrophizing thoughts, but neither group displayed a change in average pain across treatment. Further, both groups improved significantly on emotional well-being scores, but not on physical functioning scores. No significant differences existed between groups on outcomes, except for pain catastrophizing, which was higher in the Virtual group at both time points. The Virtual group had lower rates of dropouts compared to In-Person, while the In-Person group had a larger proportion reach a clinically meaningful change in pain-related outcomes, defined as a >30% improvement.DiscussionWhile some changes were unique to the In-Person program, overall, patients in the Virtual program achieved similar treatment outcomes, suggesting that it can successfully treat Veterans seeking pain management, with less need for in-person facilities for both patients and clinicians.Copyright © 2024 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.

      Pubmed     Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…