Managing Psychosocial Contributors in Low Back Pain Patients—A Randomised Controlled Trial

The efficacy of integrated physiotherapy work rehabilitation program to occupational non-specific low back pain (NSLBP) patients triaged by Orebro Musculoskeletal Pain Questionnaire (OMPQ) for psychosocial risks was investigated.Methods47 subjects were recruited and randomly allocated to either the integrated physiotherapy group or the conventional group. Red flags signs were screened out. The range of the age of the patients was between 18 and 55. They either had history injuries at work or were on sick leave upon recruitment with moderate psychosocial risk.ResultsStatistics was performed on an intention-to-treat analysis. At discharge, the patients of integrated physiotherapy group displayed significant improvement of work recovery expectation, pain self-efficacy, overall subjective progress and satisfaction in comparison with the conventional group (p < 0.05). Both groups demonstrated significant improvement of all outcome measures except the recovery expectation showed no difference in the conventional group.ConclusionThe work related treatment components of integrated physiotherapy group adopted a cognitive behavioral approach may contribute to better improvement