Reasons for treatment non-response in pain rehabilitation
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Reasons for treatment non-response to a rehabilitative pain management programme in an adult chronic pain population
IRAS ID
146652
Contact name
Jeremy Gauntlett-Gilbert
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases NHS Foundation Trust
Research summary
Chronic pain is a distressing problem that can be hard to treat with drugs or surgery. However, patients can often be helped to function better by programmes that combine physiotherapy and psychological input for this condition (pain rehabilitation programmes PRPs ).
We know that PRPs are effective; recent reviews of decades of research have supported this. However, it is also clear that many individuals do not benefit from this approach. Recently, leaders in the field have called for research into treatment non-response. They have also argued that if we know the factors underlying successful treatment, we will be able to improve treatment or target it at subgroups. Very little research has investigated what makes treatment successful, and it has tended to focus on specific, technical psychological variables.
We will take patients who have been through a PRP and define them as ‘responders’ or ‘non-responders’ by statistical criteria. We will then send them a questionnaire about the factors that they think helped, or hindered, their treatment. This will be a fairly short questionnaire asking, for example, whether the treatment was explained well enough, or whether difficulties at home might have interfered with their success. We plan to ask about a broad range of factors, based on suggestions from patients and clinicians.
We will then compare the ‘responders’ with the ‘non-responders’. For example, many patients may describe difficulties at home as a problem for treatment; however, it is the comparison between ‘responders’ and ‘non-responders’ that will allow us to detect whether these are real factors affecting treatment outcome.
REC name
East of England - Cambridge South Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/EE/0213
Date of REC Opinion
4 Jul 2014
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion