Self-management and behaviour change is at the core of back pain management. Despite the high-rate of recurrence and healthcare utilisation, clinical guidelines do not include guidance for clinicians on return consultations. This project aimed to identify primary care clinicians’ reported practices and experiences of delivering self-management advice for people returning with persistent low back pain (LBP), to inform future delivery of self-management care. In this qualitative study involving 27 primary care clinicians, four focus groups and two semi-structure interviews were conducted online. GPs ( Clinicians unanimously shared their frustrations identifying the challenges involved in supporting people who return with LBP. Helpful strategies to support self-management in return consultations were identified by clinicians in addition to service and system-level changes vital to optimise care. Patient-factors affecting delivery of care, lack of defined responsibility and challenges in meeting patients’ expectations illustrated the tensions that exist in return consultations.Purpose and background of the study
Methods and Results
Back pain guidelines endorse giving advice to enable people to self-manage and continue normal activities. Little is known however, about the content of advice that clinicians give and this project aimed to identify the advice given by physiotherapists to patients with back pain at their initial consultation. Twenty-five audio-recordings of patients with back pain and physiotherapists in a primary care outpatient department were collected, transcribed, coded and thematically analysed using a Framework approach to identify the content of advice given.Purpose and background
Patients and methods
