Multidisciplinary Treatment for Adolescents with Chronic Pain and/or Fatigue: Who Will Benefit?

The aims of this study were, first, to determine the percentage of adolescents with chronic pain/fatigue successfully treated with rehabilitation treatment for chronic pain/fatigue and, second, to identify predictors for a successful rehabilitation treatment.

Treatment success is scored based on a combination of predefined clinically relevant changes in 4 outcome measures: level of pain/fatigue, school absence, physical functioning, and psychosocial functioning. A forward stepwise logistic regression analysis with treatment success as a dependent variable is performed to identify predictors for successful treatment.

A total of 172 adolescents (mean age 16.2 [SD = 2.5]; 85.5% girls) participated. Almost half (49.6%) of the adolescents had a successful treatment. The explained variance for the complete model explaining treatment success was 49% (R² = 0.487). Patients with a higher level of pain/fatigue and a passive coping style pretreatment improved most, and these factors could thus be indicated as predictors for successful treatment. Also, gender significantly contributed to the prediction, in favor of boys.

Regarding the first aim, using predefined treatment success based on clinically relevant changes, half of the participants had a successful treatment. Concerning the second aim, adolescents with a high level of pain/fatigue and those with a high passive coping style pretreatment have a better ability to change their functioning during treatment. Boys benefit more than girls.