Challenges to early prevention and intervention: personal experiences with adherence.

Objective: To describe potential adherence-related difficulties encountered in the implementation of a secondary prevention, early intervention study with acute low back pain patients. An additional goal is to provide recommendations, based on the authors' experience, on how best to overcome these potential obstacles for future research.

Design: The study used a predictive algorithm, identified through previous research, to identify which patients presenting with acute low back pain were at risk for developing chronic problems.

Treatment- and cost-effectiveness of early intervention for acute low-back pain patients: a one-year prospective study.

In an attempt to prevent acute low-back pain from becoming a chronic disability problem, an earlier study developed a statistical algorithm which accurately identified those acute low-back pain patients who were at high risk for developing such chronicity. The major goal of the present study was to evaluate the clinical effectiveness of employing an early intervention program with these high-risk patients in order to prevent the development of chronic disability at a 1-year follow-up. Approximately 700 acute low-back pain patients were screened for their high-risk versus low-risk status.

Motivation for treatment preceding and following a substance abuse program.

Background: Motivation for treatment is generally considered a powerful predictor of treatment seeking and success in patients with alcohol and drug dependence disorders. Objective measures have seldom been used, however, to assess how motivation is altered during treatment, or the impact of depression/anxiety on motivation.

Methods: We assessed motivation using the Treatment Motivation Questionnaire (TMQ) in 78 male alcohol- and drug-dependent veterans immediately preceding and following an intensive, 2-week residential substance abuse program.

A preliminary study of multidimensional pain inventory profile differences in predicting treatment outcome in a heterogeneous cohort of patients with chronic pain.

Objective: The objective was to evaluate whether the Multidimensional Pain Inventory (MPI) is effective for predicting response to interdisciplinary treatment in a heterogeneous group of patients with chronic pain. Changes in patients' profiles to a predominantly adaptive coping status after treatment also were assessed.

Design: A prospective study was conducted of patients with an array of pain conditions.