Bmc Pediatr
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Comparative Study
Chronic pain treatment in children and adolescents: less is good, more is sometimes better.
In children with chronic pain, interdisciplinary outpatient and intensive inpatient treatment has been shown to improve pain intensity and disability. However, there are few systematic comparisons of outcomes of the two treatments. The present naturalistic study aimed to compare the clinical presentation and achieved changes at return in three outcome domains (pain intensity, disability, school absence) between a) outpatients vs. inpatients and b) patients who declined intensive inpatient treatment and completed outpatient treatment instead (decliners) vs. those who completed inpatient treatment (completers). ⋯ Inpatient and outpatient treatments are able to elicit substantial changes in pain intensity, disability and school absence. The results highlight the necessity of intensive inpatient pain treatment for highly affected children, as children who declined inpatient treatment and were treated as outpatients did less well.