Risk factors and prediction of pain recovery in patients with acute low back pain in emergency care

Abstract

Low back pain is a highly prevalent condition and is considered the main cause of years lived with disability worldwide. Low back pain can be triggered by the influence of several factors, such as individual aspects, physical, psychological stress, and environmental factors. Understanding the factors that increase the risk for triggering a new episode of low back pain is essential for the creation of prevention strategies. The prognosis for acute low back pain is typically favorable, however, there is an important variability in the clinical course of these patients. The possibility of identifying the probability that each patient will recover at specific points in time could assist clinicians during the decision-making process. This proposal describes five different studies. The first two studies (E1 and E2) have cross-sectional designs, with 100 clinicians (E1) and 350 patients with low back pain (E2), to investigate possible perceived factors that may trigger an episode of low back pain. The third study (E3) has a case-crossover design, investigating risk factors, of transient exposure, for acute low back pain in 350 patients in emergency care. The fourth study (E4) is a systematic review to identify the existing clinical prediction models on the prognosis of patients with low back pain. And the fifth study (E5) will perform external validation of an existing clinical prediction model to predict pain recovery in 1 week, 1 month and 3 months in patients with acute low back pain. In this study (E4) 420 patients will be recruited in the emergency department. This proposal is unprecedented, innovative and contains international insertion.