Papers of the Week

Young adults with chronic pain and symptoms experience disruptions to their social, emotional, physical, and vocational functioning. Interdisciplinary pain rehabilitation programs for pediatric and adult populations are not designed specifically to address the developmental needs of young adults. This paper describes the development of a novel intensive interdisciplinary outpatient rehabilitation program tailored to the unique needs of young adults with chronic pain and symptoms. Tailored content included vocational assessment and consultation, financial literacy education, and sexual health education. Outcome data demonstrate treatment gains with reductions in pain interference, pain severity, pain catastrophizing and depressive symptoms, and improvements in mental and physical quality of life, perceived performance, perceived satisfaction with performance, and objective measures of physical functioning. The paper concludes with clinical recommendations for the management of chronic pain and symptoms in young adults, applicable across multiple treatment settings.