Remote rehabilitation for patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain and treatment outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Introduction: Due to COVID-19 related interrupted healthcare, alternative remote treatment strategies have been implemented.1 The objectives of this study are to investigate (1) whether remote rehabilitation for patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain has equivalent outcomes as conventional, on-site treatment, and (2) whether on-site treatment before and during the pandemic have equivalent outcomes. Methods: Using clinical data from Centre for Integral Rehabilitation (CIR, the Netherlands),2 a retrospective observational equivalence study was conducted. Five groups of participants were formed, following outpatient, interdisciplinary treatment for ten weeks. For objective 1, participants who followed =50% of the treatment remotely during the first lockdown are compared to two groups treated on-site directly before and after the lockdown. For objective 2, participants treated on-site before the pandemic (2019) are compared to two groups treated on-site (2020 and 2021). Based on the Dutch Dataset Pain Rehabilitation, outcome measures included digital questionnaires regarding various relevant domains, with the Pain Disability Index as primary outcome measure. Change scores were compared using linear regression. Results: No results have been reported yet. It is hypothesized that partial remote rehabilitation has equivalent outcomes as conventional treatment, coherent with earlier findings.3 Preliminary results may be available before May 2022. Discussion: The major strength is the combination of two objectives in one study. The group of interest receiving only partial remote treatment is a limitation. Process evaluation: It was challenging to form groups retrospectively due to changing COVID-19 lockdown measures and considering similarity on factors other than type of treatment and pandemic status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]