Exploring the Definition of Acute Low Back Pain: A Prospective Observational Cohort Study Comparing Outcomes of Chiropractic Patients With 0-2, 2-4, and 4-12 Weeks of Symptoms

A descriptive analysis of the contents of Care Response, an international data set of patient-reported outcomes for chiropractic patients

BACKGROUND

Databases have become an important tool in understanding trends and correlations in health care by collecting demographic and clinical information. Analysis of data collected from large cohorts of patients can have the potential to generate insights into factors identifying treatments and the characteristics of subgroups of patients who respond to certain types of care. The Care Response (CR) database was designed to capture patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) for chiropractic patients internationally. Although several papers have been published analysing some of the data, its contents have not yet been comprehensively documented. The primary aim of this study was to describe the information in the CR database. The secondary aim was to determine whether there was suitable information available to better understand subgroups of chiropractic patients and responsiveness to care. This would be achieved by enabling correlations among patient demographics, diagnoses, and therapeutic interventions with machine learning approaches.

METHODS

Data in all available fields were requested with no date restriction. Data were collected on 12 April 2022. The output was manually scanned for scope and completeness. Tables were created with categories of information. Descriptive statistics were applied.

RESULTS

The CR database collects information from patients at the first clinical visit, 14, 30, and 90 days subsequently. There were 32,468 patient responses; 3210 patients completed all fields through the 90 day follow up period. 45% of respondents were male; 54% were female; the average age was 49. There was little demographic information, and no information on diagnoses or therapeutic interventions. We received StartBack, numerical pain scale, patient global impression of change, and Bournemouth questionnaire data, but no other PROMs.

CONCLUSIONS

The CR database is a large set of PROMs for chiropractic patients internationally. We found it unsuitable for machine learning analysis for our purposes; its utility is limited by a lack of demographic information, diagnoses, and therapeutic interventions. However, it can offer information about chiropractic care in general and patient satisfaction. It could form the basis for a useful clinical tool in the future, if reformed to be more accessible to researchers and expanded with more information collected.

Factors Associated With Pain Medication Use and the Relationship to Chiropractic Treatment Outcomes for Patients With Low Back and Neck Pain: A Cross-Sectional Study

OBJECTIVE

The study objectives were to identify baseline factors associated with pain medication use and determine any differences in chiropractic treatment outcomes in patients with low back pain (LBP) and neck pain (NP) depending on their use of pain medication.

METHODS

This cross-sectional, prospective outcomes study included 1077 adults with acute or chronic LBP and 845 adults with acute or chronic NP recruited from Swiss chiropractors in their offices within 4 years. Demographic data and the responses to the Patient's Global Impression of Change scale collected at 1 week, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, and 1 year were analyzed with the χ2 test. Baseline pain and disability levels were measured using the numeric rating scale (NRS), Oswestry questionnaire for LBP, and Bournemouth questionnaire for patients with NP and analyzed with the Mann-Whitney U test between the 2 groups. To detect significant predictors of medication use at baseline, logistic regression analysis was performed.

RESULTS

Patients with acute LBP and NP were more likely than those with chronic pain to take pain medication (P < .001 LBP; P = .003 NP). Medication use was more likely with patients with radiculopathy (P < .001 LBP; P = .05 NP) who were smokers (P = .008 LBP; P = .024 NP) and those reporting below-average general health (P < .001 LBP and NP). Pain medication users had higher baseline pain (P < .001 LBP and NP) and disability (P < .001 LBP and NP) scores.

CONCLUSION

Patients with LBP and NP had significantly higher pain and disability levels at baseline, tended to have radiculopathy and poor health, were smokers, and presented during the acute phase. However, for this sample of patients, there were no differences in subjective improvement between users and non-users of pain medication for any data collection time point, which has management implications.

Exploring the origin of pain subclassification, with emphasis on low back pain: a scoping review

OBJECTIVE

This scoping review aimed to explore the different working definitions for the duration of acute, subacute, and chronic pain, with emphasis on low back pain, and to establish where these definitions originated and the rationale provided for the time frames used.

INTRODUCTION

From a global perspective, low back pain is a major social and economic problem. One of the most commonly used methods to stratify and manage low back pain is the traditional duration-based classification (acute, subacute, and chronic). Where these time points lie to differentiate these transitions continues to be debated within the scientific community, which may engender a degree of heterogeneity in study findings. Therefore, applying these findings to clinical practice may be somewhat challenging. This review encapsulates the historical origins of the different duration categories to provide an understanding of how these variations were derived.

INCLUSION CRITERIA

Studies that included participants with low back pain were the focus of this review. Sources that included children or other specific pain pathologies, such as cancer pain, were excluded. The main concept of interest was that the publication proposed an original definition of the duration of acute, subacute, or chronic low back pain. All study designs were included provided they gave a rationale for the duration that they used.

METHODS

The following databases were searched: MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, and PsycINFO, from the inception of each database until September 18, 2019. This review was limited to studies published in English. Two independent reviewers screened the retrieved articles against the eligibility criteria. Additional studies were searched from the reference lists of studies to find the original source. Some original sources overlapped with general pain duration literature. This led to a deviation from the scoping review protocol, which originally intended to focus on definitions of low back pain duration only. Data extraction was undertaken using a charting table developed specifically for the review objectives. The findings were presented using narrative synthesis.

RESULTS

Nineteen records were included in this review, and comprised three book chapters, four review articles, four articles that arose following pain expert group discussions, seven primary research studies, and a spinal guideline. Data were extracted from the included studies and categorized into four themes based on the origin of the classification of the duration. The themes included i) work/employment setting, ii) empirical studies, iii) expert reasoning, and iv) pathophysiological explanation.

CONCLUSIONS

This scoping review compiled the existing literature on the working definitions of the duration of acute, subacute, and chronic low back pain and found a wide variation. These ranged from seven days, 14 days, and seven weeks for the acute and subacute transition points, and seven weeks to three years for chronic low back pain. The duration definitions specifically referring to the general pain literature focused on three and/or six months for the transition to chronic. Better integration of reasoning between the identified themes could facilitate the establishment of more ideal duration definitions in the future. Although inconclusive, the definition most commonly cited, with most consensus, was three months for the transition to chronic low back pain.

How Does the Measurement of Disability in Low Back Pain Map Unto the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health?: A Scoping Review of the Manual Medicine Literature

ABSTRACT

The objective of this study was to catalog items from instruments used to measure functioning, disability, and contextual factors in patients with low back pain treated with manual medicine (manipulation and mobilization) according to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health. This catalog will be used to inform the development of an International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health-based assessment schedule for low back pain patients treated with manual medicine. In this scoping review, we systematically searched MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, and CINAHL. We identified instruments (questionnaires, clinical tests, single questions) used to measure functioning, disability, and contextual factors, extracted the relevant items, and then linked these items to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health. We included 95 articles and identified 1510 meaningful concepts. All but 70 items were linked to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health. Of the concepts linked to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, body functions accounted for 34.7%, body structures accounted for 0%, activities and participation accounted for 41%, environmental factors accounted for 3.6%, and personal factors accounted for 16%. Most items used to measure functioning and disability in low back pain patient treated with manual medicine focus on body functions, as well as activities and participation. The lack of measures that address environmental factors warrants further investigation.

An Observational Study on Recurrences of Low Back Pain During the First 12 Months After Chiropractic Treatment

OBJECTIVES

The purpose of this study was to investigate recurrence rate and prognostic factors in a large population of patients with low back pain (LBP) up to 1 year after chiropractic care using standardized definitions.

METHODS

In Switzerland, 722 patients with LBP (375 male; mean age = 44.5 ± 13.8 years) completed the Numeric Rating Scale for pain (NRS) and the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) before treatment and 1, 3, 6, and 12 months later (ODI up to 3 months). Based on NRS values, patients were categorized as "fast recovery," "slow recovery," "recurrent," "chronic," and "others." In multivariable logistic regression models, age, sex, work status, duration of complaint (subacute: ≥14 days to <3 months; chronic: ≥3 months), previous episodes, baseline NRS, and baseline ODI were investigated as predictors.

RESULTS

Based on NRS values, 13.4% of the patients were categorized as recurrent. The recurrent pattern significantly differed from fast recovery in duration of complaint (subacute: odds ratio [OR] = 3.3; chronic: OR = 10.1). The recurrent and chronic pattern significantly differed in duration of complaint (chronic: OR = 0.14) and baseline NRS (OR = 0.75).

CONCLUSION

Recurrence rate was low in this LBP patient population. The duration of complaint before treatment was the main predictor for recurrence. The fact that even subacute duration significantly increased the odds for an unfavorable course of LBP is of clinical relevance.

Exploring the definition of «acute» neck pain: a prospective cohort observational study comparing the outcomes of chiropractic patients with 0-2 weeks, 2-4 weeks and 4-12 weeks of symptoms

BACKGROUND

Neck pain is a common complaint in chiropractic patients. Amongst other baseline variables, numerous studies identify duration of symptoms as a strong predictor of outcome in neck pain patients. The usual time frame used for 'acute' onset of pain is between 0 and 4 weeks. However, the appropriateness of this time frame has been challenged for chiropractic low back pain patients. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to compare outcomes in neck pain patients with 0-2 vs 2-4 and 4-12 weeks of symptoms undergoing chiropractic treatment.

METHODS

This is a prospective cohort observational study with 1 year follow-up including 495 patients whose data was collected between October 2009 and March 2015. Patients were divided into high-acute (0-2 weeks), mid-acute (2-4 weeks) and subacute (4-12 weeks) corresponding to duration of their symptoms at initial treatment. Patients completed the numerical pain rating scale (NRS) and Bournemouth questionnaire for neck pain (BQN) at baseline. At follow-up time points of 1 week, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months and 1 year the NRS and BQN were completed along with the Patient Global Impression of Change (PGIC) scale. The PGIC responses were dichotomized into 'improved' and 'not improved' patients and compared between the 3 subgroups. The Chi-square test was used to compare improved patients between the 3 subgroups and the unpaired Student's t-test was used for the NRS and BQN change scores.

RESULTS

The proportion of patients 'improved' was only significantly higher for patients with symptoms of 0-2 weeks compared to 2-4 weeks at the 1 week outcome time point (p = 0.015). The NRS changes scores were significantly greater for patients with 2-4 weeks of symptoms compared to 4-12 weeks of symptoms only at 1 week (p = 0.035).

CONCLUSIONS

The time period of 0-4 weeks of symptoms as the definition of "acute" neck pain should be maintained. Independent of the exact duration of symptoms, medium-term and long-term outcome is favourable for acute as well as subacute neck pain patients.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

Not applicable for prospective cohort studies. Ethics approval prior to study EK 19/2009.