Treatment Helpfulness Questionnaire: a measure of patient satisfaction with treatment modalities provided in chronic pain management programs

Abstract

The Treatment Helpfulness Questionnaire (THQ) is presented as a reliable and valid measure for assessing patient perceptions of the helpfulness of treatment modalities offered at multidisciplinary pain centers. It is easy to administer and score and shows good interscorer and test-retest reliability without order effects and with good internal consistency. Patients give diverse responses to items that fall into four factors, three of which represent identifiable components of multidisciplinary treatment for chronic pain. Findings that similar THQ items are positively correlated and that many items show positive correlations with treatment outcome support the validity of the instrument. The latter finding also suggests the potential of patient satisfaction measurement for improving treatment outcomes at pain centers.