What is the Effect of a Course for Treatment Providers on Their Patient Outcome

Pain Clinical Trial

Official title:

Does Training in Psychosocial Methods for Treatment Providers Improve Outcome for Pain Patients at Risk of Long-Term Disability? A Randomised Controlled Trail of a Course for Physical Therapists

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Completed

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT00902642
• Other study ID #: M-127
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• First received: May 13, 2009
• Last updated: May 13, 2009
• Start date: September 2004
• Est. completion date: August 2006

Study information

• Verified date: May 2009
• Source: Örebro County Council
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Health authority: Sweden: Regional Ethical Review Board
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

The goal is to acquire more in-depth knowledge on physical therapists' attitudes towards and beliefs about psychosocial factors in back pain, how physical therapists integrate psychosocial factors into their clinical practice and the effects of a training program for physical therapists in psychosocial factors on clinical practice and thereby on patient outcome in terms of disability, pain, catastrophizing, and treatment satisfaction.

Description:

Neck and back pain continue to be extremely common, with a high prevalence and wide socio-economic consequences all over the industrialized world. Through the years a growing interest has risen for other factors than the pure biomedical or biomechanical. This has led to a new clinical model for the treatment of back pain; the biopsychosocial model of illness. Treatment based on the biopsychosocial model not only must address the biological basis of symptoms, but must incorporate the full range of social and psychological factors that have been shown to affect pain, distress and disability.

Since there is today strong evidence indicating that psychosocial factors have a greater impact on disability then biomechanical or biomedical factors and strong evidence that psychosocial factors are strongly linked to the transition from acute to chronic pain, concept of psychosocial risk factors has been developed. Although the concept of psychosocial risk factors still is relatively new, there seems to be an international consensus about the importance of psychosocial risk factors for the prevention of the development of chronic pain but there appears to be considerable uncertainty about the clinical application.

Health care providers' (HCPs') attitudes and beliefs appear to influence the information they provide to patients. This may subsequently result in different patient outcome depending on the HCPs' attitudes and beliefs. Physical therapists attitudes and beliefs are relatively unexplored but seem to have an effect on patients' attitudes and beliefs, which can affect patient outcome in terms of sick leave, health care use and function.

HCP attitudes and beliefs towards psychosocial factors are relatively unexplored. Yet, it seems physical therapists do not necessarily accept new evidence-based information and may have difficulties in applying evidence-based information in their clinical practice. Implementation and dissemination of evidence-based psychosocial factors requires favourable attitudes, knowledge and skills to ensure a behavioural change on behave of the physical therapists.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Completed
• Enrollment: 364
• Est. completion date: August 2006
• Est. primary completion date: August 2006
• Accepts healthy volunteers: No
• Gender: Both
• Age group: 18 Years to 65 Years

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• Musculoskeletal pain,

• Age between 18 and 65

Exclusion Criteria:

• Sick leave for more than 3 months during the past year as a result of present the musculoskeletal pain problem

Study Design

Allocation: Randomized, Endpoint Classification: Efficacy Study, Intervention Model: Crossover Assignment, Masking: Open Label, Primary Purpose: Treatment

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Pain

Intervention

Behavioral:
• an eight day university training course designed to integrating psychosocial factors in clinical practice on a patient level
an eight day university training course on psychosocial factors for physical therapists

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
Sweden	Mälardalens högskola	Eskilstuna

Sponsors (3)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
Örebro County Council	Örebro University, Sweden, School of Law, Psychology, and Social Work, Örebro University, Sweden

Country where clinical trial is conducted

Sweden, 

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Disability		treatment start and 6 month follow up	No
Secondary	catastrophizing		treatment start and 6 month follow up	No
Secondary	treatment satisfaction		6 month follow up	No
Secondary	satisfaction with treatment result		6 month follow up	No
Secondary	Pain		treatment start and 6 month follow up	No