Eliciting a Conceptual Model for a New Patient-Reported Outcome Measure to Assess Patients’ Perception of Treatment Goal Achievement in Interdisciplinary Multimodal Pain Treatment

Abstract

Objectives

The study aimed to develop a content-valid conceptual model to capture patients’ perceptions of therapy goal achievement within interdisciplinary multimodal pain treatment (IMPT) programs. This model serves as the theoretical foundation for a new patient-reported outcome measure designed to evaluate IMPT effectiveness from the patient perspective.

Methods

Concept elicitation followed the concept mapping approach, combining qualitative and quantitative techniques. A total of 61 patients with primary chronic pain participated in focus groups and online surveys. Patient-generated treatment goals were collected, categorized, and analyzed by the multidimensional scaling method and a subsequent hierarchical cluster analysis. Finally, the data were validated by an interdisciplinary expert panel to ensure conceptual accuracy and relevance for the conceptual model.

Results

A total of 210 therapy goals were collected. Of these, 127 were retained for the final model after a reduction process. Fifteen coherent clusters emerged from the analysis, representing 3 overarching domains: functional restoration, therapy-related competence development, and psychological growth. This multidimensional structure reflects the biopsychosocial complexity of chronic pain and emphasizes that successful therapy is perceived as enhanced autonomy, regained participation, and self-empowerment rather than mere pain reduction.

Conclusions

The developed conceptual model provides a content-valid, patient-centered basis for assessing treatment goal achievement in IMPT. By integrating functional, cognitive, and emotional dimensions, it enables a differentiated assessment of patient-relevant treatment outcomes. Future work should focus on developing a conceptual framework and item generation, cognitive debriefing and validation, and psychometric evaluation in larger and more diverse samples ensuring reliability, validity, and applicability of the final patient-reported outcome measure across clinical and research settings.