Is It Worth It? A Comparison of an Intensive Interdisciplinary Pain Treatment and a Multimodal Treatment for Youths With Pain-related Disability.

Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an intensive interdisciplinary pain treatment (IIPT) day-hospital program as compared with an outpatient multimodal treatment (MMT) for youth with chronic pain.

Materials And Methods: A nonrandomized pretest posttest with control group design was used. A battery of patient-oriented measures assessing pain interference, quality of life, and depressive symptoms were completed at treatment commencement and at 3, 6, and 12 months after treatment by 44 youths enrolled in the IIPT and 138 youths engaged in the MMT, with various chronic pain conditions. Data were analyzed using longitudinal mixed-effects models.

Results: The main outcomes were the score difference from baseline of patient-oriented measures across 3 timepoints within 12 months of intervention initiation for both treatment groups. IIPT participants demonstrated greater improvement in pain interference, as compared with MMT at 3 and 12 months. Initially, health-related quality of life scores improved similarly in both groups, but greater improvement was seen in the MMT group at 12 months. Depressive symptom scores did not improve with either intervention. Only pain interference scores reached statistically and clinically significant difference levels.

Discussion: This study supports the benefits of specialized rehabilitation interventions, including both MMT and IIPT programs, for youths with chronic pain. The findings also suggest that IIPT might have a greater long-term effect for helping youths, in particular those with high pain interference scores.