title: Predicting the completion of an integrative and intensive outpatient chronic pain treatment with the personality assessment inventory.
abstract: The effects of intensive, integrative treatments for chronic pain are affected by patient compliance, and in many cases, selecting noncompliant individuals adversely impacts the cost-effectiveness of such programs. The pretreatment identification of individuals who are at risk for dropout could assist clinicians in augmenting treatments with motivational enhancement strategies for high-risk patients or using such information to select individuals who are most likely to complete a given intervention program. In this study, we tested the ability of indicators from the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI; Morey, 1991), administered prior to treatment, to identify individuals who dropped out of a 20-day chronic pain program. Results replicate findings from outpatient psychotherapy research in finding that PAI Mean Clinical Elevation and Treatment Process Index significantly differentiated dropouts from graduates, particularly when the Treatment Rejection scale suggested patients were motivated for treatment. We discuss these results and offer recommendations for the prediction of treatment dropout in pain settings.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, USA. chopwood@partners.org
authors.forename: Christopher J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Hopwood
authors.forename: Suzannah K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Creech
authors.forename: Timothy S
authors.initials: TS
authors.lastname: Clark
authors.forename: Mary W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Meagher
authors.forename: Leslie C
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: Morey
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001294:Attitude to Health; D002908:Chronic Disease; D008192:Deception; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009042:Motivation; D010045:Outpatients / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010146:Pain / Q000523:psychology*; D059408:Pain Management; D010349:Patient Compliance / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010352:Patient Dropouts / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010552:Personality Assessment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012307:Risk Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires