Getting “unstuck”: A multi-site evaluation of the efficacy of an interdisciplinary pain intervention program for chronic low back pain

Chronic low back pain is one of the major health problems in the U.S., resulting in a large number of years of disability. To address the biopsychosocial nature of pain, interdisciplinary pain programs provide integrated interventions by an interdisciplinary team in a unified setting with unified goals. This study examined outcomes of an interdisciplinary program located at two sites with different staff, yet with a unified model of treatment and documentation. Efficacy at the combined sites was examined by comparing standard measures obtained upon admission to the program with measures at completion of a 3–4 week long program for 393 patients with chronic low back pain (CLBP). Repeated measures included pain severity, pain interference, efficacy of self-management strategies, hours of activity, depression, ability to do ADLs, and physical endurance. All repeated measures differed at the p < 0.001 level, with large effect sizes (0.66–0.85). Eighty-two percent of graduates reported being “very much improved” or “much improved”. A second analyses provided evidence that treatment effects were robust across sites with no differences (<0.001) found on five of seven selected outcome measures. A third analysis found that number of days of treatment was correlated on three of seven measures at the <0.01 level. However, the amount of variance explained by days of treatment was under 5% on even the most highly correlated measure. These finding are consistent with previous research and explore short-term effectiveness of treatment across treatment sites and with variable duration of treatment.