Chronic pain program management outcomes: Long-term follow-up for veterans and civilians

Abstract

Introduction: The literature has established that interdisciplinary pain management programs are the most effective treatments for chronic pain. Patients see improvements in many pain-related variables such as pain intensity and disability upon discharge from these programs. Previous studies overlooked exploring different sub-groups in terms of their response to treatment. The present study explores how Veterans and civilians, and women and men, differ in long-term treatment outcomes from the four-week interdisciplinary pain management program at the Michael G. DeGroote Pain Clinic in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Methods: Data were obtained from psychometric measures administered at admission and discharge from the program and mailed to all completers at follow-up four months to four years after discharge. Results: Out of 197 participants, 67 (31 Veterans and 36 civilians; 34%) contacted completed all psychometric measures at follow-up. Factorial analyses of variance (ANOVAs), 3 × 2 × 2 with repeated measures, were conducted to examine time (admission, discharge, follow-up), Veteran status (Veteran, civilian), and gender (men, women). Post hoc tests were completed with the Bonferroni correction. Results showed the program was effective for all patients: they improved significantly at discharge and maintained most of their gains at follow-up. Women reported overall higher depression scores and higher pain-related disability at follow-up. Discussion: Results demonstrate the long-term effectiveness of interdisciplinary pain management programs regardless of Veteran status and highlight some differences between genders. This study adds new findings to current literature, as previous studies have not compared the long-term outcomes of Veterans and civilians from an interdisciplinary program.