Pain medicine : the official journal of the American Academy of Pain Medicine
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Chronic low back pain (CLBP) is usually quantified using the visual analog scale (VAS). However, the VAS is a subjective measure and prone to reporting bias, therefore making it difficult to differentiate patients with true pain from those seeking to obtain secondary gain. This study aimed to evaluate the feasibility of using plasma β-endorphin as an objective biomarker for CLBP. ⋯ A change in plasma β-endorphin level may be a surrogate marker of the treatment response for patients with CLBP. Advancements in β-endorphin measurements may help us better quantify pain intensity.
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To examine the treatment effectiveness of complementary and integrative health approaches (CIH) on chronic pain using Propensity Score (PS) methods. ⋯ PS-based causal methods successfully eliminated baseline difference between exposure groups in all measured covariates, yet they did not detect a significant difference in the self-rated pain intensity outcome between veterans who received CIHs and those who did not during the follow-up period.