The Benefit of Structured Triage of Patients in the Primary Health Care Seeking Care for Low Back Pain

The Benefit of Structured Triage of Patients in the Primary Health Care Seeking Care for Low Back Pain

This study aims to investigate if a low back pain screening tool is helpful for the caregivers to direct the rehabilitation in a more efficient way, at an earlier stage. Primary Health care centers in the municipality of Halmstad, Sweden will be enrolled to participate in the study as either "Control" or "intervention". The primary Health care centers who are enrolled taking part in the intervention, will use the provided screening tool when taking care of patients seeking care for low back pain. Scorings from the screening tool will "label" the patients as one of Three pre-defined risk levels. The caregiver will then use the provided risk level when deciding how to proceed the rehabilitation. Based on the risk level identified, the patient is directed to one of three levels of treatments - including simple advice; physiotherapy; or multimodal rehabilitation. The screening tool is used as a complement to the examination, allowing the physiotherapist /GP to decide how to proceed with rehabilitation using the back screening tool, together with Clinical examinations. The Control Group consists of patients recruited when seeking care for back pain at a Primary Health Care service who has been randomly selected as "Control". The care givers at the Control primary Health care will conduct as usual, not using the back pain screening tool in their Clinical examinations.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Seeking care for low back pain at any of the included primary Health care.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Red flags