A web-based clinical decision support tool for primary health care management of back pain: development and mixed methods evaluation.

Background: Many patients with back pain do not receive health care in accordance with best practice recommendations. Implementation trials to address this issue have had limited success. Despite the known effectiveness of clinical decision support systems (CDSS), none of these are available for back pain management.

Prevalence of and screening for serious spinal pathology in patients presenting to primary care settings with acute low back pain.

Objective: To determine the prevalence of serious pathology in patients presenting to primary care settings with acute low back pain, and to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of recommended "red flag" screening questions.

Methods: An inception cohort of 1,172 consecutive patients receiving primary care for acute low back pain was recruited from primary care clinics in Sydney, Australia. At the initial consultation, clinicians recorded responses to 25 red flag questions and then provided an initial diagnosis.

Characteristics of patients with acute low back pain presenting to primary care in Australia.

Objectives: This study aimed to provide a comprehensive profile of a representative sample of patients with acute low back pain drawn from the primary care setting. A secondary aim was to determine whether patient characteristics are associated with pain intensity or disability at the initial consultation.

Methods: A total of 1172 consecutive patients with acute low back pain presenting to clinics of primary care practitioners (general practitioners, physiotherapists, and chiropractors) in Australia were recruited.

Prognosis in patients with recent onset low back pain in Australian primary care: inception cohort study.

Objective: To estimate the one year prognosis and identify prognostic factors in cases of recent onset low back pain managed in primary care.

Design: Cohort study with one year follow-up.

Setting: Primary care clinics in Sydney, Australia.

Low back pain research priorities: a survey of primary care practitioners.

Background: Despite the large amount of time and money which has been devoted to low back pain research, successful management remains an elusive goal and low back pain continues to place a large burden on the primary care setting. One reason for this may be that the priorities for research are often developed by researchers and funding bodies, with little consideration of the needs of primary care practitioners. This study aimed to determine the research priorities of primary care practitioners who manage low back pain on a day-to-day basis.

Prognosis of chronic low back pain: design of an inception cohort study.

Background: Although clinical guidelines generally portray chronic low back pain as a condition with a poor prognosis this portrayal is based on studies of potentially unrepresentative survival cohorts. The aim of this study is to describe the prognosis of an inception cohort of people with chronic low back pain presenting for primary care.

Methods/design: The study will be an inception cohort study with one year follow-up.

Prognosis of acute low back pain: design of a prospective inception cohort study.

Background: Clinical guidelines generally portray acute low back pain as a benign and self-limiting condition. However, evidence about the clinical course of acute low back pain is contradictory and the risk of subsequently developing chronic low back pain remains uncertain. There are few high quality prognosis studies and none that have measured pain, disability and return to work over a 12 month period.

Identification of families with cortical Lewy body disease.

Until recently, cortical Lewy body disease (CLB) was considered essentially the same as dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). It is now known patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) with a later-onset dementia (PD-dementia) have the same pattern and extent of cortical Lewy body pathology. Inheritance patterns of CLB have not been evaluated previously.