A randomized clinical trial to compare two different approaches in women with chronic pelvic pain

AAW Peters, E.B.L. van Dorst, B Jellis, Esther J van Zuuren, Jos Hermans, JB Trimbos
In: International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics · 1992 · vol. 38(1) , pp. 73–74 · doi:10.1016/0020-7292(92)90764-a · PMID:1826544 · W2095048816
article OA: closed CC0 ⤵ 132 in-corpus citations
View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-12 ⓘ

An integrated approach to chronic pelvic pain, addressing somatic, psychological, and other factors equally from the start, improved pain significantly more than a standard approach that prioritized excluding organic causes.

One-sentence paraphrase of the abstract; not a substitute for reading it. No clinical advice. How this works

Abstract

One hundred six patients with chronic pelvic pain were randomly allocated to one of two treatment groups. In the standard-approach group, organic causes of pelvic pain were excluded first and diagnostic laparoscopy was routinely performed. If no somatic cause could be found, attention was given to other causes such as psychological disturbances. In the second group an integrated approach was chosen. From the beginning equal attention was devoted to somatic, psychological, dietary, environmental, and physiotherapeutic factors. In this group, laparoscopy was not routinely performed. Both groups were similar with respect to clinical characteristics of the patients and the severity of their pain as assessed by various pain parameters. Postcoital pain was reported by 27% of the patients. Twenty percent of the patients had had negative sexual experiences such as childhood sexual abuse or rape. Evaluation of the pain 1 year after the institution of treatment revealed that the integrated approach improved pelvic pain significantly more often than the standard approach for three out of four pain parameters (P less than .01). Laparoscopy played no important role in the treatment of pelvic pain. It is concluded that equal attention to both organic and other causative factors from the beginning of therapy is more likely to result in a reduction of pelvic pain than is a standard approach.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Condition tags

chronic_pelvic_pain

Citation neighborhood

Papers in the corpus that this work cites (lower rings, blue) and that cite this one (upper rings, green). Dot size scales with the paper's in-corpus citation count — bigger dot = more influential within the endo/adeno field. Click a dot to open that paper. [ expand to 2 hops ] — adds papers reached through this work's immediate citers/citees. Heavier; up to 60 extra dots.

Cited by (50)

Source provenance

openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
unpaywall
last seen: 2026-07-26T06:48:27.953686+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK