Thus, multidisciplinary treatment ameliorates pain, functional restoration, and quality of life with medium to high effect sizes even for patients with a long history of chronic back pain. Effect sizes are higher than for monodisciplinary treatments and treatment effects remained stable at 6-month follow-up in a longitudinal uncontrolled study design. Thus, we believe that multidisciplinary treatment is vital for the treatment of patients with chronic low back pain. The impact of sociodemographic and pain-related parameters needs to be taken into account when including patients in an appropriate treatment program. We emphasize the presentation of effect sizes as a vital treatment evaluation to enable cross-sectional comparison of therapy outcomes.
Patients' global self-assessment is a valid parameter to determine the outcome after treatment of chronic back pain. A clinically meaningful pain reduction can be assumed if there is at least a 25/100 point reduction (VAS), while a worsening of pain is already found to be important when there is a rise of 9/100 points.
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