Pain medicine : the official journal of the American Academy of Pain Medicine
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Subgroups of patients with chronic low back pain may exhibit differences in self-reported measures of pain, functioning, coping, and psychological distress. The present study compared subgroups of patients with chronic low back pain referred either for pre-spinal cord stimulator (SCS) psychological evaluations or for behavioral pain management (BPM). ⋯ Pre-SCS patients possibly underreport psychological symptoms perhaps to gain SCS approval for SCS. Separate norms and cutoffs for pre-SCS psychological evaluations may be needed to better identify risks of unsuccessful outcomes. Validity scales for measures of psychological distress also could be developed to detect biased reporting. Alternatively, referring clinicians may have referred patients for BPM who were more psychologically distressed and perceived as more in need of psychosocial intervention than those referred for pre-SCS evaluations. Further investigation of clinical referral decisions and assessment bias is warranted to clarify the meaning of these differences and how they apply to patient outcomes.
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To identify patient factors and health care utilization patterns associated with dose escalation during the first year of long-term opioid therapy for chronic pain. ⋯ Dose escalation during the first year of long-term opioid therapy is associated with higher rates of substance use disorders and more frequent outpatient encounters, especially non face-to-face encounters.