Standard Telephone Consultation for Pain

Physician to Physician Telephone Consultation for Chronic Pain Patients: a Pragmatic Randomized Trial

Status

Completed

Phases

Study type

Interventional

Source

ClinicalTrials.gov

Registry ID

NCT01923324

Acronym

STC

Enrollment

Registered

2013-08-15

Start date

2005-07-31

Completion date

2010-12-31

Last updated

2013-08-15

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

Chronic Pain

Brief summary

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether pain control for patients with chronic pain is improved by the availability of structured telephone consultations between the patients' family physicians and pain physicians, compared to pain control for patients receiving usual care.

Interventions

BEHAVIORALPhysician telephone consultation

Pain physician support for family physician treating patient

BEHAVIORALUsual family physician care

Usual family physician care without telephone consultation with pain physician

Study design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Intervention model

PARALLEL

Primary purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE (Subject)

Eligibility

Sex/Gender

ALL

Age

18 Years to No maximum

Healthy volunteers

Inclusion criteria

* patients referred to Alberta Health Services chronic pain center in Calgary with neurological or muscular skeletal pain

Exclusion criteria

* increased risk for suicide, very complex patients, family physician could not reliably identify patient's pain problem, or condition warranted expedited consultation with pain physician, case represented a new presentation of chronic regional pain syndrome, or low back pain with radicular symptoms or sciatica

Design outcomes

Primary

Measure	Time frame	Description
Numerical Rating Scale for pain intensity (NRS)	6 months	11 point scale (from zero to 10), zero equals no pain, 10 worst possible pain.

Secondary

Measure	Time frame	Description
Pain Disability Index (PDI)	6 months	7 item self-report scale assessing pain disability
Patient Global Impression of Change Scale (PGIC)	6 months	7 point scale
Short Form Health Survey (SF-36)	6 months	Generic quality of life scale.

Other

Measure	Time frame
Family physician knowledge transfer questionnaire	6 months
Pain treatment satisfaction scale (patient)	6 months
Family physician satisfaction questionnaire	6 months

Countries

Canada

Outcome results

None listed

Source: ClinicalTrials.gov · Data processed: Feb 4, 2026