Evidence Hub

Responsiveness of Outcome Measures in Nonsurgical Patients with Lumbar Spinal Stenosis: A Secondary Analysis From a Randomized Controlled Trial

Carlesso C, Piva SR, Smith C, Ammendolia C, Schneider MJ

Spine, 2021

180 participants

Abstract

STUDY DESIGN: Secondary analysis from a randomized controlled trial on nonsurgical interventions for patients with lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS).

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to assess the responsiveness of the Self-Paced Walking Test (SPWT), Swiss Spinal Stenosis Questionnaire (SSS), and Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) and determine their minimal clinically important differences (MCID) in nonsurgical LSS patients.

SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA: Limited information is available about the responsiveness of these tests in nonsurgical LSS population.

METHODS: A total of 180 participants completed the SPWT, SSS, and ODI at baseline, 2, and 6 months. Responsiveness was assessed by distribution-based method, including effect size and standardized response mean, and anchor-based method, using the patient global index of change (PGIC) as the external anchor to distinguish responders and non-responders. Areas under the curve (AUC) were calculated along with MCIDs for "minimal" and "moderate improvement" subgroups.

RESULTS: The following values represent 2- and 6-month analyses of each outcome measure, respectively. Standard effect sizes: 0.48 and 0.50 for SPWT, -0.42 and -0.36 for SSS, and -0.29 and -0.25 for ODI. Spearman correlation coefficients between PGIC and outcomes were: 0.44 and 0.39 for SPWT, -0.53 and -0.55 for SSS, and -0.46 and -0.54 for ODI. MCIDs for the "minimal improvement" subgroup were: 375.9 and 319.3 ms for SPWT, -5.3 and -5.8 points for SSS, and -9.3 and…

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a secondary / pooled analysis, done in people. Its evidence level is 3 of 5 (Moderate · trial / cohort / secondary analysis). Trials without a large randomized design, cohorts and secondary analyses give moderate evidence. Reported size: 180 participants or records.

How the five levels of evidence work. The level is assigned automatically from the abstract and can be wrong, so check the paper.

Read the paper

Related studies

Go deeper in Evidence Hub

Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.

Open this study Sign up free