Development and testing of a low back pain guideline: moving beyond rhetoric to patient and provider outcomes

Low back pain (LBP) rates among the most common pain syndromes in Europe, Israel, and the United States and is a health problem of tremendous medical
and socio-economic dimensions. As reported at previous EGPRW meetings, our research group has been involved in a multiproject research program on
LBP in primary care. Our efforts have included a qualitative study on patients' and providers' perceptions of LBP, a multi-practice network of
epidemiologic research, and now, guideline development and the submission of a grant for guideline testing. In this presentation, the method of developing
the guideline will be discussed, as well as the proposal for clinical testing. The LBP guideline is an attempt to form a national collaborative standard, with participation of family physicians, orthopaedic surgeons, an occupational physician, a primary care internist, a physical therapist and a neurosurgeon. The proposal for testing this guideline focuses on outcome measures such as the real behaviour of physicians, as reflected in habits and costs, and improvements in clinical states of LBP patients.