Article

PURPOSE: To analyse differences between males and females in expectations about
rehabilitation outcome. Design: cross-sectional study. Setting: a
general rehabilitation centre. Patients: n = 616, mean age 44 years, with chronic
musculoskeletal pain, referred for multidisciplinary pain rehabilitation. All
eligible patients in the period January 2005 to September 2009 were sent a
questionnaire prior to or during the first two weeks of the treatment; the
response was 630 out of 1105 (57%), of whom 14 patients did not give permission
to use their data for research purposes. Main outcome measure: odds ratios.
RESULTS: Odds ratios for 21 items from a list of 25 expectations were not
significant, odds ratios for 3 expectations were lower than 2 and odds ratio for
1 expectation was 4.0. Male patients were more likely than female patients to
expect that the treatment would enable them to cope better with being a spouse
and that the cause of their pain would be found. Female patients were more likely
than male patients to expect that the treatment would enable them to better
accept the fact that they could no longer do what they were able to do in the
past, and that they would have fewer problems with household activities.
CONCLUSION: There were no gender differences in pre-treatment expectations for 21
of 25 possible expectations, small differences for 3 expectations and a strong,
clinically important difference for 1 expectation: female patients were more
likely than male patients to expect that they would have fewer problems with
household activities.

Langue : ANGLAIS