Integrative group therapy outcome related to psychosocial characteristics in patients with chronic pain

Previous observations stress the importance of patient characteristics as contributors to treatment outcome. In this study the outcome of integrative pain group therapy was investigated in relation to prior treatment psychosocial characteristics in pain clinic outpatients with chronic pain. The patients participated in 10 weekly sessions (2 1/2 hours) of integrative pain group therapy consisting of cognitive-behavioural strategies and light physical exercises. After the 12-month follow-up the modified method of cluster analysis was applied on the admittance data of the sample of 47 patients in order to divide the subjects into three homogenized subgroups (Interpersonally Distressed patients, Adaptive Copers and Dysfunctional patients) with varying prior treatment characteristics. The outcome of treatment was analysed by comparing the effect of intervention on the psychosocial functional profiles of the subgroups. The functional profiles were assessed by a six-scale self-report questionnaire describing the psychosocial components of three functional dimensions as recommended by the World Health Organization (1999). The results supported the previous conclusions that prior treatment functional profiles are important contributors to pain treatment outcome. However, the results also suggested that cluster analysis technique may be a very robust method to divide patients into 'homogenized' subgroups.