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Influence of Cannabinoid Treatment on Trajectories of Patient-Related Outcomes in Chronic Pain: Pain Intensity, Emotional Distress, Tolerability and Physical Disability

The treatment of chronic pain with cannabinoids is becoming more widespread and popular among patients. However, studies show that only a few patients experience any benefit from this treatment. It also remains unclear which domains are affected by cannabinoid treatment. Therefore, the present study...

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Autores principales: Balestra, Anna Marie, Chalk, Katharina, Denke, Claudia, Mohammed, Nashwan, Fritzsche, Thomas, Tafelski, Sascha
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10136873/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37190645
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13040680
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author Balestra, Anna Marie
Chalk, Katharina
Denke, Claudia
Mohammed, Nashwan
Fritzsche, Thomas
Tafelski, Sascha
author_facet Balestra, Anna Marie
Chalk, Katharina
Denke, Claudia
Mohammed, Nashwan
Fritzsche, Thomas
Tafelski, Sascha
author_sort Balestra, Anna Marie
collection PubMed
description The treatment of chronic pain with cannabinoids is becoming more widespread and popular among patients. However, studies show that only a few patients experience any benefit from this treatment. It also remains unclear which domains are affected by cannabinoid treatment. Therefore, the present study is novel in that it explores the effects of cannabinoid treatment on four patient-related outcome measures (PROMs), and includes patients with chronic refractory pain conditions who have been given the option of cannabinoid treatment. A retrospective design was used to evaluate the impact of cannabinoid treatment on patients with refractory pain in two German outpatient pain clinics. The present study shows that pain intensity (mean relative reduction (−14.9 ± 22.6%), emotional distress (−9.2 ± 43.5%), pain-associated disability (−7.0 ± 46.5%) and tolerability of pain (−11 ± 23.4%)) improved with cannabinoid treatment. Interestingly, the trajectories of the PROMs seemed to differ between patients, with only 30% of patients responding with respect to pain intensity, but showing improvements in other PROMs. Although the mean treatment effects remained limited, the cumulative magnitude of change in all dimensions may affect patients’ quality of life. In summary, a singular evaluation with pain intensity as the sole outcome does not cover the multidimensional effects of cannabinoids. Therefore, the treatment effects of cannabinoids should be evaluated with different PROMs.
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spelling pubmed-101368732023-04-28 Influence of Cannabinoid Treatment on Trajectories of Patient-Related Outcomes in Chronic Pain: Pain Intensity, Emotional Distress, Tolerability and Physical Disability Balestra, Anna Marie Chalk, Katharina Denke, Claudia Mohammed, Nashwan Fritzsche, Thomas Tafelski, Sascha Brain Sci Article The treatment of chronic pain with cannabinoids is becoming more widespread and popular among patients. However, studies show that only a few patients experience any benefit from this treatment. It also remains unclear which domains are affected by cannabinoid treatment. Therefore, the present study is novel in that it explores the effects of cannabinoid treatment on four patient-related outcome measures (PROMs), and includes patients with chronic refractory pain conditions who have been given the option of cannabinoid treatment. A retrospective design was used to evaluate the impact of cannabinoid treatment on patients with refractory pain in two German outpatient pain clinics. The present study shows that pain intensity (mean relative reduction (−14.9 ± 22.6%), emotional distress (−9.2 ± 43.5%), pain-associated disability (−7.0 ± 46.5%) and tolerability of pain (−11 ± 23.4%)) improved with cannabinoid treatment. Interestingly, the trajectories of the PROMs seemed to differ between patients, with only 30% of patients responding with respect to pain intensity, but showing improvements in other PROMs. Although the mean treatment effects remained limited, the cumulative magnitude of change in all dimensions may affect patients’ quality of life. In summary, a singular evaluation with pain intensity as the sole outcome does not cover the multidimensional effects of cannabinoids. Therefore, the treatment effects of cannabinoids should be evaluated with different PROMs. MDPI 2023-04-19 /pmc/articles/PMC10136873/ /pubmed/37190645 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13040680 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Balestra, Anna Marie
Chalk, Katharina
Denke, Claudia
Mohammed, Nashwan
Fritzsche, Thomas
Tafelski, Sascha
Influence of Cannabinoid Treatment on Trajectories of Patient-Related Outcomes in Chronic Pain: Pain Intensity, Emotional Distress, Tolerability and Physical Disability
title Influence of Cannabinoid Treatment on Trajectories of Patient-Related Outcomes in Chronic Pain: Pain Intensity, Emotional Distress, Tolerability and Physical Disability
title_full Influence of Cannabinoid Treatment on Trajectories of Patient-Related Outcomes in Chronic Pain: Pain Intensity, Emotional Distress, Tolerability and Physical Disability
title_fullStr Influence of Cannabinoid Treatment on Trajectories of Patient-Related Outcomes in Chronic Pain: Pain Intensity, Emotional Distress, Tolerability and Physical Disability
title_full_unstemmed Influence of Cannabinoid Treatment on Trajectories of Patient-Related Outcomes in Chronic Pain: Pain Intensity, Emotional Distress, Tolerability and Physical Disability
title_short Influence of Cannabinoid Treatment on Trajectories of Patient-Related Outcomes in Chronic Pain: Pain Intensity, Emotional Distress, Tolerability and Physical Disability
title_sort influence of cannabinoid treatment on trajectories of patient-related outcomes in chronic pain: pain intensity, emotional distress, tolerability and physical disability
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10136873/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37190645
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13040680
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