Multidisciplinary Pain Management of Chronic Back Pain: Helpful Treatments from the Patients’ Perspective

This study examines how patients with chronic back pain perceive the helpfulness of different treatments within a multidisciplinary pain management program (MPMP). The program includes physiotherapy, relaxation therapy, aquatic therapy, back education, and psychological pain therapy. The study found that patients perceive different treatments as having varying degrees of helpfulness. Physical therapies like individual and group physiotherapy were generally rated as more helpful compared to music or psychological pain therapy. The research also explored whether factors like age, education, or pain severity influenced how helpful patients found each treatment. Importantly, the study suggests a connection between patients' perceptions of treatment helpfulness and the actual improvements they experienced in pain and function.

• 1
  Patients' perceived treatment helpfulness differs significantly between treatment modalities, with individual physiotherapy being rated the highest and music therapy the lowest.
• 2
  Perceived treatment helpfulness was influenced by patient-related factors such as age, education, BMI and prior sports activity, though these correlations were generally weak.
• 3
  The degree of pain-related improvements corresponded to the patients’ perceived treatment helpfulness, meaning patients who found a treatment helpful experienced greater improvements in pain and disability.