Publication
Can an allied health expanded scope Treatment Access Pathway (TAP) improve health outcomes for people with persistent pain? Study protocol for a pragmatic randomised controlled trial
Publisher:
Research Square Platform LLC
Date:
04-04-2019
DOI:
10.21203/RS.2.1749/V1
Abstract: Background Persistent pain is a public health crisis. Demand for services frequently exceeds supply and many in iduals miss out on timely treatment resulting in longer than recommended wait times. The Interdisciplinary Persistent Pain Centre (IPPC) (Queensland, Australia) implemented a Treatment Access Pathway (TAP), an allied health first point of contact model of care to allow patients access to empirically supported allied health treatment without Pain Specialist assessment. The primary aim of this research project is to understand the clinical and cost effectiveness of TAP in a real-world setting. Method: Participants referred to the IPPC are randomly allocated to treatment or waitlist control groups and self-report and objective physical outcome measures are collected at baseline and 6 months’ time. A total of 196 patients will be recruited for the study (treatment group, n=98 and control group, n=98) to allow a 20% attrition rate to gain 156 participants for the study. Discussion: The results of this study will determine the clinical outcomes and cost effectiveness of the TAP as a model of care to inform future clinical decision making and program development. Ethics approval was provided by the Research Governance Office at Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service (RGOGCHHS) on the 19/10/2016 (HREC/16/QGC/156).