A new tool to measure hope: Stratifying treatment expectations in chronic pain
A new study introduces the Brief Inventory of Treatment Expectations in Chronic Pain (BITEC), a validated tool designed to classify patients’ expectations of therapy. Developed using Item Response Theory and tested in over 1,100 adults with chronic pain, the nine-item instrument reliably distinguishes between high and low expectation levels. The research found that expectation levels varied significantly across pain phenotypes, with the highest expectations in nociceptive pain and the lowest in patients with multiple overlapping pain conditions. The tool demonstrated strong construct validity, linking expectation categories to differences in symptom severity, pain catastrophizing, and overall pain burden.
Why it might matter to you:
For clinicians managing complex pain, this instrument provides a data-driven method to personalize care strategies by first understanding a patient’s mindset. It directly addresses a core component of multimodal analgesia and behavioral pain therapy by quantifying a factor known to influence therapeutic outcomes. Integrating such an assessment could refine clinical decision-making, helping to tailor interventions like cognitive behavioral therapy or interventional procedures based on a patient’s pre-treatment expectations.
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