Purpose and background. Lower back pain is a leading cause of disability and a common condition seen by osteopaths. Evidence and advice for the safest lifting posture vary, as do healthcare practitioners' attitudes towards back pain. The aim of this study was to understand osteopaths' beliefs about safe lifting postures, their attitudes towards back pain, and to compare these findings with published data from physiotherapists and manual handling advisors. Methods and results. A cross-sectional electronic survey was used to invite a sample of UK osteopaths to select images that best represent their perception of safe lifting posture (straight or rounded back), and to complete the Back Pain Attitudes Questionnaire (Back-PAQ, Appendix 1). Data was analysed to assess lifting posture selection and relationship to back pain attitudes. 46 (85.2%) out of 54 osteopaths selected straight back posture as safest, these participants had significantly more negative attitudes to back pain injury (i.e. higher Back-PAQ scores), than the 8 osteopaths who selected a rounded back posture (p = 0.007). Data from 266 physiotherapists and 132 manual handling advisors revealed an overall agreement about straight back lifting posture, however revealed differences in Back-PAQ attitude between the professions. Conclusion. Despite a lack of evidence base and inconsistent recommendations, osteopaths in this survey and other healthcare practitioners believe that straight back lifting posture is the safest. Practitioners' attitudes vary and are known to influence their
Background. Phone based Physiotherapy is a topical area of investigation. Salisbury, (2013) states it may be as effective as usual care. It is also suggested that satisfaction is similar, but more specific attitudes have not been investigated. This study aims to retrospectively investigate the attitudes of PD vs usual care patients and to identify any differences in the attitudes of spine pain vs peripheral pain patients. Methods and Results. Questionnaires including 6 attitude questions (3 negatively, 3 positively worded) scored between 0–10 were completed by 197 physiotherapy patients discharged between 6 and 12 months previously. n=99 had received usual care, n=19 only PD care and n=79 both PD and usual care. N=61 had been treated for back or neck pain and n=136 had peripheral pain. Overall patients who had received some PD care were more likely to strongly agree (score 8–10) with the positive statements and strongly disagree (score 0–2) with the negative ones than patients who had not had some PD care. Spine patients who had never had PD were more likely to strongly agree with the negative statements than non-spines, but this was only the case with 1-in-3 negative statements in spine patients who had received PD. Compared to spine pain patients who had never had PD care, spine patients who had received PD were far more likely to strongly disagree with negative statements about PD than non-spine patients. Multiple other interesting trends exist. Conclusion. Spine pain
Purpose and background. Pain related distress is associated with poor low back pain outcomes, and is challenging for practitioners to address. This study investigated osteopaths' beliefs about the relationship between chronic pain (CP) and distress (D). The research aimed to explore how patient's distress is understood and managed by osteopath educator clinicians with an interest in the field. Methods and results. A qualitative research design using a constructivist grounded theory analytical approach was used to analyse semi-structured interviews. A purposive sample of seven osteopaths working at the British School of Osteopathy (BSO) with experience with CP-D was recruited. Data collection and analysis were carried out simultaneously. Audio-recording, verbatim-transcriptions, memos-writing and diary-keeping were used to develop themes and theory. Three main themes were identified: osteopaths understanding of the CP-D presentation, evaluation and assessment of the CP-D patient, the role of the osteopath and therapist-patient interaction in CP-D treatment. Three sub-themes were developed for each theme. Conclusions. Osteopaths recognized the relationship between CP-D. They considered the management of this presentation complex and challenging due to extensive clinical uncertainty. Osteopaths considered the therapist-patient interaction as a crucial vehicle for evaluating the individual patient presentation along with understanding patient's biopsychosocial factors and readiness to change, however a lack of rigor was identified with this process. Challenges related to evaluation were mainly related to patient characteristics and osteopath's lack of training. Further work is required to develop better evaluation and intervention strategies as well as understanding
