• Clémence Bélanger, Chantale Dumoulin, Sophie Bergeron, Marie-Hélène Mayrand, Samir Khalifée, Guy Waddell, Marie-France Dubois, Mélanie Morin, and PVD Group.
• School of Rehabilitation, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Université de Sherbrooke and Research Center of the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Sherbrooke (CHUS).
• Clin J Pain. 2022 Mar 8; 38 (5): 360367360-367.

ObjectiveThe aim was to investigate whether pretreatment pain characteristics, psychological variables, and pelvic floor muscle (PFM) function predict the response to physical therapy (PT) in women with provoked vestibulodynia (PVD).Materials And MethodsOne hundred-five women diagnosed with PVD underwent 10 weekly sessions of individual PT comprising education, PFM exercises with biofeedback, manual therapy, and dilators. Treatment outcomes were evaluated at pretreatment, post-treatment, and 6-month follow-up and included pain intensity (numerical rating scale 0 to 10) and sexual function (Female Sexual Function Scale). Multilevel analyses were used to examine the potential predictors of response over time including pain characteristics (PVD subtype, pain duration), psychological variables (fear of pain, pain catastrophizing), and PFM function assessed with a dynamometric speculum (tone, flexibility, and strength).ResultsPVD subtype and PFM tone were significant predictors of greater treatment response for pain intensity reduction. Secondary PVD (ie, pain developed after a period of pain-free intercourse) and lower PFM tone at baseline were both associated with greater reduction in pain intensity after PT and at follow-up. Among the psychological variables, fear of pain was the only significant predictor of better treatment response when assessed through improvement in sexual function, where higher fear of pain at baseline was associated with greater improvement after PT.DiscussionThis study identified PVD secondary subtype, lower PFM tone, and higher fear of pain as significant predictors of better treatment response to PT in women with PVD.Copyright © 2022 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.

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