Effect of Research Participation Versus Usual Clinical Treatment on Pain in Patients With Musculoskeletal Disorders

Musculoskeletal (MSK) disorders are a major burden on individuals, health systems, and social care systems. Increases in life expectancy and ageing populations are expected to make MSK disorders one of the leading causes of disability by the year 2020. When faced with a potentially life changing diagnosis of a chronic disease, people (in general) develop an organized pattern of perceptions about their condition, and how it impacts their lives and often, the essentially same stressful event may cause significant variations in perceptions. These different perceptions and coping strategies might affect the way the individual chooses to handle the disease and seek health care assistance, which altogether eventually may affect the course of the illness. Study participation besides reassurance, could be hypothesized to induce beneficial outcomes for the patients, but is it reasonable to expect an effect of study participation regardless of study intervention, design and group allocation? And is an eventual effect mainly derived from the intervention or from the participants being a selected group? It remains to be clarified, whether and how study participation affects the individual's treatment effect and perceptions of the illness.