Risk classification of patients referred to secondary care for low back pain

Prognostic ability of STarT Back Screening Tool combined with work-related factors in patients with low back pain in primary care: a prospective study

OBJECTIVE

Primary care screening tools for patients with low back pain may improve outcome by identifying modifiable obstacles for recovery. The STarT Back Screening Tool (SBST) consists of nine biological and psychological items, with less focus on work-related factors. We aimed at testing the prognostic ability of SBST and the effect of adding items for future and present work ability.

METHODS

Prospective observational study in patients (n=158) attending primary care physical therapy for low back pain. The prognostic ability of SBST and the added prognostic value of two work items; expectation for future work ability and current work ability, were calculated for disability, pain and quality of life outcome at 3 months follow-up. The medium and high-risk group in the SBST were collapsed in the analyses due to few patients in the high-risk group. The prognostic ability was assessed using the explained variance (R²) of the outcomes from univariable and multivariable linear regression and beta values with 95% CIs were used to assess the prognostic value of individual items.

RESULTS

The SBST classified 107 (67.7%) patients as low risk and 51 (32.3%) patients as medium/high risk. SBST provided prognostic ability for disability (R²=0.35), pain (R²=0.25) and quality of life (R²=0.28). Expectation for return to work predicted outcome in univariable analyses but provided limited additional prognostic ability when added to the SBST. Present work ability provided additional prognostic ability for disability (β=-2.5; 95% CI=-3.6 to -1.4), pain (β=-0.2; 95% CI=-0.5 to -0.002) and quality of life (β=0.02; 95% CI=0.001 to 0.04) in the multivariable analyses. The explained variance (R²) when work ability was added to the SBST was 0.60, 0.49 and 0.47 for disability, pain and quality of life, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS

Adding one work ability item to the SBST gives additional prognostic information across core outcomes. Clinical trial number: NCT03626389.

The association between believing staying active is beneficial and achieving a clinically relevant functional improvement after 52 weeks: a prospective cohort study of patients with chronic low back pain in secondary care

BACKGROUND

According to clinical guidelines, advice to stay active despite experiencing pain is recommended to patients with non-specific low back pain (LBP). However, not all patients receive guideline-concordant information and advice, and some patients still believe that activity avoidance will help them recover. The purpose was to study whether guideline-concordant beliefs among patients and other explanatory variables were associated with recovery. The main aim was to investigate whether believing staying active despite having pain is associated with a better functional outcome.

METHODS

This was a prospective cohort study involving adults with non-specific LBP referred from general practices to the Spine Centre at Silkeborg Regional Hospital, Denmark. Patients reported on their beliefs about the importance of finding the cause, the importance of diagnostic imaging, perceiving to have received advice to stay active, pain duration, pain intensity, and STarT Back Tool. Agreeing to: 'An increase in pain is an indication that I should stop what I'm doing until the pain decreases' adjusted for age, gender, and education level was the primary explanatory analysis. A 30% improvement in the Roland Morris Disability Questionnaire (RMDQ) score after 52 weeks was the outcome.

RESULTS

816 patients were included and 596 (73.0%) agreed that pain is a warning signal to stop being active. Among patients not considering pain as a warning signal, 80 (43.2%) had a favourable functional improvement of ≥30% on the RMDQ compared to 201 (41.2%) among patients considering pain a warning signal. No difference was found between the two groups (adjusted P = 0.542 and unadjusted P = 0.629). However, STarT Back Tool high-risk patients had a less favourable functional outcome (adjusted P = 0.003 and unadjusted P = 0.002). Chronic pain was associated with less favourable functional outcome (adjusted P < 0.001 and unadjusted P < 0.001), whereas beliefs about finding the cause, diagnostic imaging, perceiving to have received advice to stay active, or pain intensity were not significantly associated with outcome.

CONCLUSIONS

Holding the single belief that pain is a warning signal to stop being active was not associated with functional outcome. However, patients characterised by having multiple psychological barriers (high-risk according to the STarT Back Tool) had a less favourable functional outcome.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

Registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (registration number: NCT03058315), 20 February 2017.

Identifying psychosocial characteristics that predict outcome to the UPLIFT programme for people with persistent back pain: protocol for a prospective cohort study

INTRODUCTION

Prognostic screening of people with low back pain (LBP) improves utilisation of primary healthcare resources. Whether this also applies to secondary healthcare remains unclear. Therefore, this study aims to develop prognostic models to determine at baseline which patients with persistent LBP are likely to have a good and poor outcome to a 5-week programme of combined education and exercise ('UPLIFT') delivered in a secondary healthcare setting.

METHODS AND ANALYSIS

A prospective cohort study of 246 people with persistent LBP will be conducted in a secondary healthcare outpatient setting. Patients will be recruited from a physiotherapy-led neurosurgical screening clinic. Demographic data, medical history and psychosocial characteristics will be recorded at baseline. Fear avoidance beliefs, pain self-efficacy, LBP treatment beliefs, pain catastrophising, perceived injustice, depression, anxiety and stress, disability level, pain intensity and interference, health status and social connectedness will be considered as potential prognostic variables, which will be assessed using self-reported questionnaires. Participants will attend the UPLIFT programme, consisting of weekly 90 min group sessions that combine interactive education sessions and a graded exercise programme. The outcome measure to identify good and poor outcome is the Global Rating of Change scale, assessed at completion of the UPLIFT programme and at 6 months follow-up. Multiple imputation analyses will be performed for missing values. Prognostic models will be developed using multivariable logistic regression analyses, with bootstrapping techniques for internal validation. We will calculate the explained variance of the models and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve. Furthermore, we will determine whether participation in the UPLIFT programme is associated with changes in psychosocial characteristics.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION

Gold Coast Health Service Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC/18/QGC/41) and the Griffith University Human Research Ethics Committee (GU Ref No: 2018/408) approved the study. Dissemination of findings will occur via peer-reviewed publications and conference presentations.

TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER

ACTRN12618001525279.