STarT Back Tool risk stratification is associated with changes in movement profile and sensory discrimination in low back pain: A study of 290 patients.

Background: Investigation of movement and sensory profiles across STarT Back risk subgroups.

Methods: A chronic low back pain cohort (n = 290) were classified as low, medium or high risk using the STarT Back Tool, and completed a repeated spinal bending task and quantitative sensory testing. Pain summation, time taken and the number of protective behaviours with repeated bending were measured.

What Do Medical Students Do and Want When Caring for "Difficult Patients"?

Medical students, like physicians, experience negative emotions such as frustration when interacting with some patients, and many of these interactions occur for the first time during clinical clerkships. Students receive preclinical training in the social and behavioral sciences, often including learning about "difficult patient" interactions, yet little is known about their desire for training during clinical education. We explored students' strategies in these difficult clinical interactions, whether they felt prepared by the curriculum, and what support they would have liked.

Physiotherapists implicitly evaluate bending and lifting with a round back as dangerous.

Background: Beliefs can be assessed using explicit measures (e.g. questionnaires) that rely on information of which the person is 'aware' and willing to disclose.

How do manual handling advisors and physiotherapists construct their back beliefs, and do safe lifting posture beliefs influence them?

Background: The Back-Pain Attitudes (Back-PAQ) questionnaire measures back beliefs across 6 domains. Our previous study showed that manual handling advisors (MHAs) have more negative beliefs than physiotherapists (PTs), and those who think straight back lifting is safer than a rounder back have more negative beliefs. However, exactly which domains of the Back-PAQ are most negative is unknown.

Physiotherapist perceptions of optimal sitting and standing posture.

Background: Assessment of, and advice about, spinal posture is common when people with spinal pain present to physiotherapists. Most descriptions regarding optimal spinal posture have been qualitative in nature.

Objectives: To determine the beliefs of physiotherapists regarding optimal sitting and standing posture.

The perspectives of physiotherapists on managing nonspecific low back pain following a training programme in cognitive functional therapy: A qualitative study.

Background: It has long been acknowledged that nonspecific chronic low back pain (NSCLBP) is associated with a complex combination of biopsychosocial (BPS) factors, and recent guidelines advocate that the management of back pain should reflect this multidimensional complexity. Cognitive functional therapy (CFT) is a behaviourally oriented intervention that targets patients' individual BPS profiles. Although the efficacy of CFT has been demonstrated in primary care, little evidence exists about the training requirements of this approach.

Perceptions of physiotherapists towards the management of non-specific chronic low back pain from a biopsychosocial perspective: A qualitative study.

Background: Physiotherapists have been urged to embrace a patient-oriented biopsychosocial (BPS) framework for the management of non-specific chronic low back pain (NSCLBP). However, recent evidence suggests that providing broader BPS interventions demonstrates small differences in pain or disability compared to usual care. Little is known about how to integrate a BPS model into physiotherapy practice and the challenges it presents.

Cognitive load theory for training health professionals in the workplace: A BEME review of studies among diverse professions: BEME Guide No. 53.

Aim: Cognitive load theory (CLT) is of increasing interest to health professions education researchers. CLT has intuitive applicability to workplace settings, yet how CLT should inform teaching, learning, and research in health professions workplaces is unclear.

Method: To map the existing literature, we performed a scoping review of studies involving cognitive load, mental effort and/or mental workload in professional workplace settings within and outside of the health professions.

Correlations between the active straight leg raise, sleep and somatosensory sensitivity during pregnancy with post-partum lumbopelvic pain: an initial exploration.

Background and aims For some women, lumbopelvic pain (LPP) developed during pregnancy becomes a continuing post-partum problem. Increased understanding of potential prognostic factors is required. This study investigated whether active straight leg raise (ASLR), sleep dysfunction and pressure pain sensitivity during pregnancy are correlated with LPP intensity and quality, disability, and physical health-related quality of life (HRQoL) post-partum.

Associations Between Musculoskeletal Pain Experience and Pressure and Cold Pain Sensitivity: A Community-based Cross-sectional Study of Young Adults in the Raine Study.

Objectives: To investigate the cross-sectional associations between musculoskeletal pain experience and measures of pressure and cold pain sensitivity in young adults from the Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) Study.

Participants And Methods: In total, 917 participants were eligible for analysis if they provided data pertaining to musculoskeletal pain status at the 22-year follow-up and had data for at least 1 valid pain sensitivity test. Standardized protocols were used to assess pressure pain threshold (4 sites: lumbar spine, tibialis anterior, upper trapezius, and wrist) and cold pain threshold (wrist).

Are Psychologic Factors Associated With Shoulder Scores After Rotator Cuff Surgery?

Background: Psychologic factors are associated with pain and disability in patients with chronic shoulder pain. Recent research regarding the association of affective psychologic factors (emotions) with patients' pain and disability outcome after surgery disagrees; and the relationship between cognitive psychologic factors (thoughts and beliefs) and outcome after surgery is unknown.

Questions/purposes: (1) Are there identifiable clusters (based on psychologic functioning measures) in patients undergoing shoulder surgery? (2) Is poorer psychologic functioning associated with worse outcome (American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons [ASES] score) after shoulder surgery?

Methods: This prospective cohort study investigated patients undergoing shoulder surgery for rotator cuff-related shoulder pain or rotator cuff tear by one of six surgeons between January 2014 and July 2015.

Microanalysis of video from a robotic surgical procedure: implications for observational learning in the robotic environment.

Without haptic feedback, robotic surgeons rely on visual processing to interpret the operative field. To provide guidance for teaching in this environment, we analyzed intracorporeal actions and behaviors of a robotic surgeon. Six hours of video were captured by the intracorporeal camera during a robot-assisted lower anterior resection.

Remooring: A Qualitative Focus Group Exploration of How Educators Maintain Identity in a Sea of Competing Demands.

Purpose: Longitudinal faculty development programs (LFDPs) are communities of practice (CoPs) that support development of participants' educator identity (EID). This study explored how program graduates negotiated their newly formed EIDs among competing identities and demands in academic medicine.

Method: In this multicenter, cross-sectional, qualitative study, graduates of two LFDP cohorts (one and five years post graduation) were invited in 2015 to participate in a one-hour, cohort-specific focus group.

Potential infection-control benefit of measures to mitigate the risk posed by Trojan dams in the Irish BVD eradication programme.

In the epidemiology of Bovine Viral Diarrhoea (BVD), Trojan dams (animals that are not persistently infected (PI) with BVD (BVDv) virus but carrying PI foetuses) are a vehicle through which infection can be transmitted. We investigated the degree to which restricting movement of cattle from BVDv infected herds would prevent Trojan births in other herds (effectiveness) and the extent to which this would reduce other, non-Trojan, movements (proportionality). We focussed on Irish herds with BVD + animal(s) present during 2014 and/or 2015.

Evaluation of implicit associations between back posture and safety of bending and lifting in people without pain.

Background and aims Despite lack of support from recent in vivo studies, bending and lifting (especially with a round-back posture) are perceived as dangerous to the back. In light of this view, it has been proposed that pain-free people may hold a common implicit belief that is congruent with the idea that bending and lifting with a round-back represents danger to a person's back, however this has not been evaluated. The aims of this study were: (1) to evaluate implicit associations between back posture and safety related to bending and lifting in pain-free people; (2) to explore correlations between the implicit measure and explicit measures of back beliefs, fear of movement and safety of bending; (3) to investigate self-reported qualitative appraisal of safe lifting.

Evidence for the Validity of the Psychopharmacotherapy-Structured Clinical Observation Tool: Results of a Factor and Time Series Analysis.

Objective: The Psychopharmacotherapy-Structured Clinical Observation (P-SCO) is a direct observation tool designed to assess resident performance of a medication visit. This study examines two dimensions of validity for the P-SCO: internal structure and how scores correlate with another variable associated with competence (experience).

Methods: The faculty completed 601 P-SCOs over 4 years.