Effect on Health Care Costs for Adolescents Receiving Adjunctive Internet-Delivered Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy: Results of a Randomized Controlled Trial.
The economic burden of pediatric chronic pain is high, with an estimated annual cost of $19.5 billion. Little is known about whether psychological treatment for pediatric chronic pain can alter health care utilization for youth. The primary aim of this secondary data analysis was to evaluate the effect of adjunctive internet cognitive-behavioral therapy intervention or adjunctive internet education on health care-related economic costs in a cohort of adolescents with chronic pain recruited from interdisciplinary pain clinics across the United States. For the full sample, health care expenditures significantly decreased from the year before the intervention to the year after the intervention. Results indicated that the rate of change in health care costs over time was not significantly different between the internet cognitive-behavioral therapy intervention and adjunctive internet education groups. Further research is needed to replicate these findings and determine patterns and drivers of health care costs for youth with chronic pain evaluated in interdisciplinary pain clinics and whether psychological treatments can alter these patterns. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov (identifier NCT01316471).


PERSPECTIVE
Health care expenditures significantly decreased in youth with chronic pain from the year before initiating treatment to the following year in both intervention conditions, adjunctive internet cognitive-behavioral therapy and adjunctive internet education. Contrary to our hypothesis, the rate of change in health care costs over time was not significantly different between intervention conditions.
['Law|Emily F|EF|', 'Groenewald|Cornelius B|CB|', 'Zhou|Chuan|C|', 'Palermo|Tonya M|TM|']
D000293:Adolescent D002648:Child D059350:Chronic Pain D015928:Cognitive Behavioral Therapy D005260:Female D017048:Health Care Costs D006801:Humans D020407:Internet D008297:Male D059408:Pain Management D010147:Pain Measurement D017060:Patient Satisfaction D019114:Remote Consultation D016896:Treatment Outcome
health care costs adolescent cognitive-behavioral therapy Chronic pain internet child