Patient Education for Patients With Back Pain Referred to Physical Therapy

Effect of a Patient Education Intervention for Patients With Low Back Pain Referred to Physical Therapy

The purpose of this study is to evaluate patients with low back pain who are scheduled to begin physical therapy but have not yet had their first appointment to better understand their beliefs and attitudes and to evaluate the effects of an educational session about low back pain.

The investigators will conduct a randomized trial to examine the effectiveness of a patient education session provided prior to beginning physical therapy on outcomes of usual physical therapy for acute/sub-acute low back pain patients. The study compares two groups, one group will be treated with usual physical therapy with no pre-treatment education and the other group will also receive the pre-treatment. Patients will be followed after 6 weeks and 3 months. Physical therapy care is left to the discretion of the physical therapist in conjunction with the patient. Outcomes will include pain and disability, and patients attitude and believes (pain catastrophizing, fear avoidance behavior). The overall hypothesis is that the additional educational treatment may address and improve pain, disability and fear.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Chief complaint of non-specific low back pain scheduled to receive outpatient physical therapy
• age 18-60
• duration of current symptoms < 8weeks
• referred to physical therapy from a non-surgeon provider
• no treatment received for low back pain in past year other than physician office visits.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Diagnosis provided by the referral source indicating a specific pathoanatomical source for LBP including fracture, spondylolesthesis, ankylosing spondylitis, radiculopathy
• any red flags in the patient's general medical screening questionnaire (i.e. tumor, metabolic diseases etc.).