Treatment satisfaction in osteoarthritis and chronic low back pain: the role of pain, physical and emotional functioning, sleep, and adverse events.
Global ratings of treatment satisfaction and improvement can provide an opportunity for patients to aggregate multiple aspects of their treatment into a single measure of its perceived benefits and disadvantages. Although such measures have been recommended for chronic pain clinical trials, only limited data are available that address the hypothesis that they reflect multiple aspects of patients' treatment experience. Our objective was to identify the factors that make independent contributions to ratings of treatment satisfaction. We analyzed data from 5 open-label clinical trials of lidocaine patch 5% in osteoarthritis knee pain and chronic low back pain that were 2 to 12 weeks in duration. A total of 383 patients completed the Patient Global Assessment of Treatment Satisfaction scale and measures of pain, interference with physical and emotional functioning, sleep interference, and adverse events. The results of multivariate analyses indicated that improvements in measures of pain intensity, pain relief, and interference with physical functioning each made independent contributions to treatment satisfaction in both groups of patients. Improvements in interference with emotional functioning and sleep and the presence and severity of adverse events were not associated with satisfaction.


CONCLUSIONS
Measures of treatment satisfaction can reflect different aspects of the patient's treatment response, including improvements in pain and physical functioning. Increased understanding of such global measures may facilitate development of clinical trial outcomes that allow patients to evaluate with minimal burden those aspects of the treatment experience they consider personally meaningful.
Dworkin
Robert H
RH
Departments of Anesthesiology and Neurology, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, Rochester, NY 14642, USA. robert_dworkin@urmc.rochester.edu
Jensen
Mark P
MP
Gould
Errol
E
Jones
Beverly A
BA
Xiang
Qinfang
Q
Galer
Bradley S
BS
Gammaitoni
Arnold R
AR
D000779:Anesthetics, Local / Q000008:administration & dosage; D002908:Chronic Disease; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008012:Lidocaine / Q000008:administration & dosage; D017116:Low Back Pain / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000523:psychology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D020370:Osteoarthritis, Knee / Q000188:drug therapy*; D010146:Pain / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000523:psychology*; D010147:Pain Measurement / Q000379:methods; D017060:Patient Satisfaction / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012890:Sleep / Q000187:drug effects; D057968:Transdermal Patch
D000779:Anesthetics, Local; D008012:Lidocaine