Sociodemographic predictors of attendance at a Scottish pain management programme

We examined relationships between various sociodemographic factors and attendance at the Glasgow Pain Management Programme (n = 2899 from 2011 to 2019). We tested for associations between gender, age and socioeconomic deprivation of patients who were invited to attend, and uptake to a programme when invited, attendance at screening assessment, eligibility, adherence and attendance at 3- and 6-month reviews. Uptake was significantly higher for patients from more affluent areas (95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.93–0.99, p = 0.002) and for older patients (95% CI = 0.98–0.99, p = 0.006), although effect sizes were very small. Patients were significantly more likely to be assessed as suitable if they were younger (95% CI = 0.98–0.99, p = 0.013) or female (95% CI = 0.55–0.84, p < 0.001). Attendance at sessions and at 3- and 6-month reviews was higher for patients from more affluent areas (95% CI = 1–1.09, p = 0.001, and 95% CI = 1–1.1, p = 0.044 respectively). We argue that there are multiple potential explanations for these findings and that future work should attempt to determine whether these patterns replicate in other populations and to determine any modifiable causes.