Journal Club meeting May 12, 2014

Time: 11:30 a.m. -1:00 p.m.

Location: Dental Sciences Building, Room D7-11

In recent years a precedent has been set by funding agencies for the use of patient-centeredness and patient reported outcomes (PROs) in studies related to the evaluation of clinical trials for drug and medical device development.

Clinical pain researchers already utilize PROs, however, are they being used appropriately or are changes still needed in the way outcomes are obtained. For example should the impetus be on A) including the patient more, or B) staying with the predominant measure of pain intensity but working towards improving its use (e.g. standardizing). One might also ask if the real issue is whether we should just start over with a whole new way of doing things.

In the attached papers it is pointed out how we could enhance research by including PROs for adverse event reporting, comparative effectiveness, etc. (see attached). Should we highlight the use of standardized patient reported outcome performance measures (PRO-PMs) for quality assessment of pain measures. On the other hand, Kamper and colleagues point out that inter-measure variability increases based on time, measure length, wording, etc. So, while pain measures seem to be 1) valid, 2) responsive to change, and 3) measure the same thing (pain intensity), they don’t necessarily meet criteria set forth by past research recommendations (IMMPACT). The attached papers deal with the topic of how to measure pain intensity in a way that puts everyone on the same scale. Which way is best and which way will provide the best information needed for the evaluation of new interventions is a topic that should generate a good discussion that will be led by Dr. Corey Simon.

Moore_Anesth_13_Pain measures and cut-offs
Basch_AnnRev_14_New frontiers in patient-reported outcomes Kamper_PainPractice_14_Measuring Pain Intensity in Patients with Neck Pain – Does It Matter How You Do It