Measuring patient reported outcomes of acupuncture treatment on pain patients' health status

Objectives: The primary aim of this observational multicenter case series study was to assess patient reported outcome measures of health status following routine acupuncture treatment. Design: Via the patient reported 'MYMOP2-online' questionnaire 110 pain patients reported three times (baseline, after four weeks, after sixteen weeks) whether changes in health status occurred following un-standardized routine acupuncture treatment. Results: ANOVA for repeated measures showed that primary pain (-38.8%), secondary pain (-38.4%), limitation to daily functioning (-33.2%), subjective well-being (24.2%), and health status (34.0%) significantly improved between zero and four weeks (p < 0.001). The achieved health benefits persisted over the long term (sixteen weeks). Pain medication usage decreased by 44.5% in four weeks. The changes in health status could not be related to specific aspects of acupuncture treatment. Conclusion: In this observational study pain patients self-reported a statistically significant and clinically relevant long-term improvement in health status following acupuncture treatments in routine practice. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.