Several factors were found to be associated with disability at follow-up for at least two different pain symptoms .
However , owing to insufficient studies , no generic risk factors for sick leave were identified .
Conclusions Multiple site pain , high pain severity , older age , baseline disability and longer pain duration were identified as potential prognostic factors for disability across pain sites .
There was limited evidence that anxiety and depression were associated with disability in patients with subacute pain , indicating that these factors may not play as large a role as expected in developing disability due to a pain condition .
Objective This systematic review aims to identify generic prognostic factors for disability and sick leave in subacute pain patients .
Independent evaluation of a clinical prediction rule for spinal manipulative therapy: a randomised controlled trial
A clinical prediction rule to identify patients most likely to respond to spinal manipulation  has been published and widely cited but requires further testing for external validity . We performed a pre-planned secondary analysis of a r and omised controlled trial investigating the efficacy of spinal manipulative therapy in 239 patients presenting to general practice clinics for acute , non-specific , low back pain . Patients were r and omised to receive spinal manipulative therapy or placebo 2 to 3 times per week for up to 4 weeks . All patients received general practitioner care ( advice and paracetamol ) . Outcomes were pain and disability measured at 1 , 2 , 4 and 12 weeks . Status on the clinical prediction rule was measured at baseline . The clinical prediction rule performed no better than chance in identifying patients with acute , non-specific low back pain most likely to respond to spinal manipulative therapy  ( pain P = 0.805 , disability P = 0.600 ) . At 1-week follow-up , the mean difference in effect of spinal manipulative therapy  compared to placebo in patients who were rule positive rather than rule negative was 0.3 points less on a 10-point pain scale ( 95 % CI −0.8 to 1.4 ) . The clinical prediction rule proposed by Childs et al. did not generalise to patients presenting to primary care with acute low back pain who received a course of spinal manipulative therapy
Several factors were found to be associated with disability at follow-up for at least two different pain symptoms .
However , owing to insufficient studies , no generic risk factors for sick leave were identified .
Conclusions Multiple site pain , high pain severity , older age , baseline disability and longer pain duration were identified as potential prognostic factors for disability across pain sites .
There was limited evidence that anxiety and depression were associated with disability in patients with subacute pain , indicating that these factors may not play as large a role as expected in developing disability due to a pain condition .
Objective This systematic review aims to identify generic prognostic factors for disability and sick leave in subacute pain patients .