Clinical History Does Not Reliably Predict Clinical Outcomes With Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy to Treat Chronic Constipation.

Chronic constipation affects 10%-20% of the population and impacts quality-of-life similarly to rheumatoid arthritis or congestive heart failure.1 We recently showed in a prospective clinical trial that up-front, community-based pelvic floor physical therapy is effective to treat chronic constipation for patients seeking general gastroenterology care after failing a brief trial of osmotic laxative or soluble fiber supplementation2 and can be guided by anorectal function testing.3,4 In this post hoc analysis, we aimed to evaluate whether factors on clinical history including specific symptoms, work-productivity impairment, health-related quality-of-life impairment, and psychological factors are useful to inform patient selection on the expected likelihood of clinical response without using anorectal function tests.