Application of a Modified Person-Centered Counseling Scale to Investigate Experiences of Individuals With Chronic Pelvic Pain

INTRODUCTION: Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) refer to standardized instruments that capture patients’ perspectives about their symptoms and conditions. In chronic pelvic pain and endometriosis care, PROMs are increasingly incorporated into research studies despite minimal consensus regarding specific instruments or how best to use these in clinical practice. The Person-Centered Contraceptive Counseling scale (PCCC) is a 4-item PROM that has been validated to assess person-centeredness in contraceptive counseling. PCCC scores have been associated with treatment satisfaction at the population level among contraceptive users. Given its simplicity and validity in other gynecologic specialties, the PCCC represents a promising tool for assessing perceptions of person-centered care in individuals with chronic pelvic pain. OBJECTIVE: Our primary objective was to design and pilot a modified PCCC questionnaire within a subspecialty chronic pelvic pain clinic. Secondarily, we aimed to assess for patient factors associated with PCCC scores. METHODS: We adapted the original PCCC to a chronic pelvic pain clinical context (Table 1). We performed a prospective cohort study enrolling new patients (aged ≥18 years) presenting to a chronic pelvic pain subspecialty clinic from October 2024 to September 2025. The modified PCCC scale is a 4-item questionnaire with each item ranked “Poor” (1) to “Excellent” (5) with summed scores ranging from 4 to 20. The modified PCCC scale served as our primary outcome metric in this study. Similar to previous literature, we stratified participants dichotomously based on “top-box” scores of 20 versus scores <20. We performed bivariate analyses with chi-square and Fisher’s exact test to examine associations between PCCC scores and demographic and clinical characteristics following initial chronic pelvic pain clinic visits. RESULTS: A total of 92 participants completed the survey during the study period. Respondents were most often 30–39 years old (41.3%), identified as Non-Hispanic White (65.9%), and had a college degree or above (68.5%). Almost all patients (92%) had experienced pelvic pain for over one year, and 66.3% had previously tried three or more treatments for their pelvic pain. The mean PCCC score across the cohort was 19.5 (SD 1.38) and 84% of participants had top-box scores. Bivariate analysis (Table 2) revealed no association between top-box PCCC scores and demographic factors, previous diagnoses related to pelvic pain, previous treatments, or treatments decided upon during initial visit at chronic pelvic pain subspecialty clinic. CONCLUSIONS: We piloted a modified PCCC scale to evaluate person-centeredness in the care for individuals with chronic pelvic pain. Patients’ perceptions of person-centeredness were largely positive with over 80% of participants ranking the health care team as “Excellent” in all categories, with mean PCCC scores of 19.5 out of 20. Participants’ experiences with person-centeredness did not differ based on demographics or pelvic pain treatment plans. The modified PCCC is a brief, practical tool that can be easily integrated into research and quality improvement efforts. Future studies could explore its use in primary care or general obstetrics and gynecology settings to identify and address potential disparities in care.Table 1Table 2