The beliefs of people with chronic pain in relation to 'important' treatment components

Background. The beliefs of people with chronic pain (service users) about the importance of treatment components offered through both multidisciplinary and other types of chronic pain programmes are not widely examined in the literature. Aim and method. As part of a wider research study of the congruence between what service providers and service users believe to be important treatments for chronic pain, members of three chronic pain support groups located in the North-West region of England were surveyed. The survey asked service users' opinion about whether specific treatment components are important or not important for people with chronic pain. The survey also included Skevington's Beliefs About Pain Control Questionnaire (BPCQ) that measures beliefs in the internal or personal control of pain, beliefs that powerful others (doctors) control pain and beliefs that pain is controlled by chance events. Results and conclusion. Findings show that no treatment components were endorsed as important by more that 67% of the participants. Endorsements clustered around treatments that focused on self-management and biomedical interventions. A statistically significant relationship emerged between certain treatment components and BPCQ scores. These findings contribute to the growing cautions regarding standardised, 'one-size-fits all' treatment programs and the mistake of assuming people with pain form a homogenous group. (C) 2003 European Federation of Chapters of the International Association for the Study of Pain. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.