ArticleBMJ open2019
Assessment of patients' expectations: development and validation of the Expectation for Treatment Scale (ETS).
Article in BMJ open, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 46 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
46 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 69 citations in OpenAlex.
- Neural Correlates of Explicit Outcome Expectation Effects: An Activation Likelihood Estimation Meta-Analysis.Human brain mapping · 2026Pooled it
- Guideline
- Role of expectations in clinical outcomes after deep brain stimulation in patients with Parkinson's disease: a systematic review.Journal of neurology · 2023Pooled it
- Immediate clinical and neuromechanical effects of cervical spine manipulation compared to cervical spine mobilization among individuals with chronic neck pain: a randomized mechanistic cross-over trial.Chiropractic & manual therapies · 2026Trial
- Assessment of patient preferences in digital health trials: procedure development and implementation in a preference-based trial.BMJ open · 2026Trial
- Acupuncture for chemotherapy-induced dysgeusia (AcuDysg): a randomized controlled trial.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2026Trial
- Trial
- Trial
- Trial
- Effect of Briefing on Acupuncture Treatment Outcome Expectations, Pain, and Adverse Side Effects Among Patients With Chronic Low Back Pain: A Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA network open · 2021Trial
- The immediate effects of mobilization with movement on shoulder range of motion and pain in patients with rotator cuff-related shoulder pain: A randomized controlled trial (Evolution Trial).Brazilian journal of physical therapyTrial
- Review
- Association between working alliance and treatment outcomes in a mobile health intervention with a conversational agent (CanRelax).Internet interventions · 2026Article
- Development and Validation of the Brief Inventory of Treatment Expectations in Chronic Pain (BITEC).European journal of pain (London, England) · 2026Article
- Article
- Article
- Mobile health intervention CanRelax reduces distress in people with cancer in a randomized controlled trial.NPJ digital medicine · 2025Article
- Leading by example: Experimental evidence that therapist lived experience disclosures can model the path to recovery for clients.British journal of psychology (London, England : 1953) · 2025Article
- Psychometric Validation of the Speed of Change in Feeling of Health (SCFH) Questionnaire: Findings from the NEWTON Sub-Study in Italian Asthma Patients.Patient related outcome measures · 2025Article
- The role of peer support in coping and adjustment to dialysis and transplantation: Study protocol.PloS one · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo develop a short self-report instrument for the assessment of expectations (Expectation for Treatment Scale(ETS)) using acupuncture as a case example.
designA cross-sectional assessment with retest after 1 week.
settingA web-based survey with patients suffering from pain.
methodsIn a three-step approach, we reduced the initially collected number of items from 17 to 9 and to 5, including expectations about coping ability, vitality, physical health and reduction of patient complaints. Items were selected according to internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha); convergent and divergent validities with related constructs (optimism, pessimism, resilience, perceived sensitivity to medicines, depression and others); 1-week retest reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC)); and exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).
resultsA total of 102 patients suffering from pain were included, and 54 of these patients completed the retest assessment. The final version of the ETS consisted of five items and had an excellent Cronbach's alpha (0.90), with 72.33% variance on one single factor. Depression, pessimism and perceived sensitivity to medicines showed positive correlations with our expectation measure (r=0.23, r=0.20 and r=0.34, respectively); the correlation between the ETS and optimism was low (r=-0.07) and no correlation between the ETS and resilience was found (r=-0.07). Convergent validity was confirmed with a high correlation (r>0.90) between ETS and a treatment-specific measure of expectations. The retest ICC was 0.86, which showed high stability over 1 week. A CFA (n=439) with data from patients with low back pain confirmed the single-factor structure of the instrument.
conclusionThe ETS showed strong psychometric properties and covered a distinct construct. As the next step, the ETS might be implemented in different clinical conditions and settings to investigate psychometrics and its predictive power for treatment outcomes.
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