Clinical trial NCT03368521: The Benefit of Structured Triage of Patients in the Primary Health Care Seeking Care for Low Back Pain
Official title: The Benefit of Structured Triage of Patients in the Primary Health Care Seeking Care for Low Back Pain
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: UNKNOWN
Phase: NA
Conditions: Low Back Pain
Lead sponsor: FoU Center Spenshult
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2017-12-11
Enrollment: 150
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Maximum age (years): 67
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: SCREENING

Brief summary: This study aims to investigate if a low back pain screening tool is helpful for the caregivers to direct the rehabilitation in a more efficient way, at an earlier stage. Primary Health care centers in the municipality of Halmstad, Sweden will be enrolled to participate in the study as either "Control" or "intervention". The primary Health care centers who are enrolled taking part in the intervention, will use the provided screening tool when taking care of patients seeking care for low back pain. Scorings from the screening tool will "label" the patients as one of Three pre-defined risk levels. The caregiver will then use the provided risk level when deciding how to proceed the rehabilitation. Based on the risk level identified, the patient is directed to one of three levels of treatments - including simple advice; physiotherapy; or multimodal rehabilitation. The screening tool is used as a complement to the examination, allowing the physiotherapist /GP to decide how to proceed with rehabilitation using the back screening tool, together with Clinical examinations. The Control Group consists of patients recruited when seeking care for back pain at a Primary Health Care service who has been randomly selected as "Control". The care givers at the Control primary Health care will conduct as usual, not using the back pain screening tool in their Clinical examinations.


Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Seeking care for low back pain at any of the included primary Health care.

Exclusion Criteria:

* Red flags

Primary outcomes:
measure: Number of physiotherapy treatments
timeFrame: 4 months after inclusion
measure: Number of physiotherapy treatments
timeFrame: 12 months after inclusion
Secondary outcomes:
measure: back pain questionnaire - The Keele STarT Back Screening Tool
timeFrame: 4 months after inclusion
measure: back pain questionnaire - The Keele STarT Back Screening Tool
timeFrame: 12 months after inclusion
measure: back pain questionnaire - Pain distribution
timeFrame: 4 months after inclusion
measure: back pain questionnaire - Pain distribution
timeFrame: 12 months after inclusion
measure: back pain questionnaire - The Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire
timeFrame: 4 months after inclusion
measure: back pain questionnaire - The Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire
timeFrame: 12 months after inclusion
measure: work ability - Work productivity and activity impairment questionnaire (WPAI)
timeFrame: 4 months after inclusion
measure: work ability - Work productivity and activity impairment questionnaire (WPAI)
timeFrame: 12 months after inclusion
measure: work ability - The work ability index (WAI)
timeFrame: 4 months after inclusion
measure: work ability - The work ability index (WAI)
timeFrame: 12 months after inclusion
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Halmstad
country: Sweden
facility: FoUSpenshult
Study officials:
affiliation: FoU Center Spenshult
name: Stefan Bergman, PhD
role: STUDY_CHAIR
References: