#33: How much pain relief do patients expect from our treatments?

When a patient comes to see a physiotherapist, or any health care professional, how much better does that patient need to get to make a treatment worthwhile? This is an important question because we're constantly making treatment recommendations to patients, day in-day-out, but based on what? My guest for this podcast, Harrison Hansford, reckons a lot of our treatment decisions should be made with consideration of something called the Smallest Worthwhile Effect, which is actually surprisingly easy to understand. Enjoy!

Key Papers:

1. Hansford HJ, Jones MD, Cashin AG, Ostelo RW, Chiarotto A, Williams SA, Sharma S, Devonshire JJ, Ferraro MC, Wewege MA, McAuley JH. The smallest worthwhile effect on pain intensity of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and exercise therapy for acute and chronic low back pain: a benefit-harm trade-off study. J Physiother. 2023 Oct;69(4):240-248. doi: 10.1016/j.jphys.2023.08.006.

2. Abdel Shaheed C, Mathieson S, Wilson R, Furmage AM, Maher CG. Who should judge treatment effects as unimportant? J Physiother. 2023 Jul;69(3):133-135. doi: 10.1016/j.jphys.2023.04.001. Epub 2023 May 30. PMID: 37263906.

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Connect with Jared and guests:

Jared on Instagram: @‌shoulder_physio

Jared on Twitter: @‌jaredpowell12

Harrison on Twitter: @HJHansford

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