Efficacy of musculoskeletal injections by primary care providers in the office: a retrospective cohort study

BACKGROUND Musculoskeletal joint pain of varied etiology can be diagnosed and treated with joint and soft-tissue corticosteroid injections. PURPOSE The purpose of our study was to compare patients' bodily pain and quality of life (QOL), in addition to the procedural benefit and patient satisfaction, before and after musculoskeletal injections in the office setting. PATIENTS AND METHODS Patients were eligible for recruitment if they were over age 18 and had an injection for musculoskeletal pain from a primary care provider in an office procedural practice. Included in our analysis were knee joint/bursa, trochanteric bursa, and shoulder joint/bursa injection sites. The variables measured were pain, benefit from the injection, QOL physical and mental components, and patient satisfaction. This was a retrospective cohort study approved by the institutional review board. RESULTS Patients' pain was assessed by the patients using a six-point Likert scale (none, very mild, mild, moderate, severe, and very severe). We noted that self-perception of pain decreased from 3.10 (± standard deviation at baseline 0.96) before to 2.36 (± standard deviation after the infection 1.21) (P = 0.0001) after the injection. In terms of the impact on QOL, our patients had a pre-injection physical score of 37.25 ± 8.39 and a mental score at 52.81 ± 8.98. After the injections, the physical score improved to 42.35 ± 9.07 (P = 0.0001) and the mental to 53.54 ± 8.20 (P = 0.0001) for the overall group. Ninety-six percent of the patients reported they were satisfied or extremely satisfied in the procedure clinic. CONCLUSION In this study, we found significant pain relief and improved physical QOL in patients undergoing an injection in the knee joint/bursa, shoulder joint/bursa, or trochanteric bursa by primary care providers in the office setting.