The responsiveness and interpretability of psychosocial patient-reported outcome measures in chronic musculoskeletal pain rehabilitation.

Background: For several widely used patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) in chronic musculoskeletal pain (CMSP) rehabilitation, it is still not known whether they are responsive to change, and what the smallest detectable change (SDC) and minimal clinically important change (MCIC) are. Knowledge of these values can be used to accurately interpret change scores in research and clinical practice.

Methods: In this retrospective cohort study, the responsiveness, the SDC and the MCIC of the mental components of the Research and Development 36-Item Health Survey (RAND-36), the Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS) and the Tampa Scale of Kinesiophobia (TSK) were investigated in CMSP patients.