Describing the management of back pain by community pain clinics
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Describing the characteristics, treatment pathways, outcomes and costs of people with nonspecific low back pain managed by community pain clinics in Nottingham and generating an indicative estimate of cost-effectiveness
IRAS ID
178806
Contact name
Roger Knaggs
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
university of Nottingham
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 10 months, 31 days
Research summary
Non-specific low back pain is tension, soreness and/or stiffness in the lower back region for which it is difficult to identify a specific cause. In the United Kingdom, musculoskeletal pain is the leading cause of chronic pain, with back pain and osteoarthritis together responsible for over half of all cases. Furthermore, the direct cost associated with disability due to back pain was estimated to be around 1.6 billion pound in 1998.
Apart from the economic burden, back pain has also been suggested to be the leading cause of disability worldwide. Patients with back pain report limitation in daily activities. Moreover, back pain was found to affect relationships, feelings of loneliness, cohabitation and social interaction problems. Finally, work related issues include changes to job-related activities, personal interactions, sickness leave and financial concerns.Community based multidisciplinary pain clinics have been recommended in The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines as a rational option for managing people with back pain.
In recent years community pain clinics (CPC) have been set up in primary care with the aim of providing chronic pain management locally, improving patient’s health, reducing referrals to secondary care and optimizing medication use. In the UK, according to the English pain summit reports, managing pain through CPC is already well-established but there is a need for research defining the role and exploring the effectiveness and economic consequences of these clinics in patients with chronic pain.Apart from the lack of UK relevant evidence on the effect of multidisciplinary clinics on pain, disability and occupation-related outcomes, evidence is needed to demonstrate the cost effectiveness of these resource intensive services.
Few cost effectiveness studies have been undertaken to evaluate these services in Europe and the USA, some of them are still in progress in Spain and the Netherlands. However, the results about the cost effectiveness of these services have been inconclusive due to the variety of interventions, participants and outcome measures.REC name
East Midlands - Nottingham 1 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/EM/0190
Date of REC Opinion
24 Apr 2015
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion