Cost savings of reducing opioid prescribing for the treatment of people with low back pain in general practice: a modelling study.

Background: Low back pain (LBP) is the leading cause of disability worldwide. Contrary to clinical guidelines, opioids are frequently prescribed early in the management of LBP in primary care, leading to potential harm and downstream healthcare costs. The objective of this study was to model the one-year impacts of strategies that reduce opioid prescribing for low back pain (LBP) in primary care on healthcare costs and overdose deaths Australia-wide and explore the potential for such strategies to be cost-neutral.

Pain and Physical Function are common core domains across 40 core outcome sets of musculoskeletal conditions: A systematic review.

Objective: To determine common domains across existing musculoskeletal COSs. Secondary aims were to assess the development quality of existing musculoskeletal COSs and whether development quality and patient participation was associated with domain selection.

Study Design And Setting: A systematic review of musculoskeletal COSs.

Development of a patient decision aid for people with chronic low back pain and degenerative disc disease considering lumbar fusion: A mixed-methods study.

Objectives: To develop and user-test a patient decision aid providing evidence-based information for people with chronic low back pain (LBP) and degenerative disc disease considering lumbar fusion.

Design: Convergent parallel mixed methods study.

Setting: A prototype patient decision aid was developed, guided by the International Patient Decision Aid Standards (IPDAS) criteria, a multidisciplinary steering committee, and insights from previous studies.

Patient preferences for drug therapy in inflammatory arthritis: protocol for a living systematic review and evidence map to inform clinical practice guidelines.

Introduction: The pharmacological management of inflammatory arthritis often requires choices that involve trade-offs between benefits, risks and other attributes such as administration route, frequency and cost. This living systematic review aims to inform international clinical guidelines on inflammatory arthritis by creating an evidence map of patient preference studies concerning the trade-offs in pharmacological management of inflammatory arthritis.

Methods And Analysis: We will include published and peer-reviewed full-text studies in any language that quantitatively assess preferences of patients for the pharmacological management of inflammatory arthritis (rheumatoid arthritis, spondyloarthritis and juvenile idiopathic arthritis).

Alternative healthcare delivery arrangements in Nepal: a systematic review of comparative effectiveness, safety and cost-effectiveness studies.

Background: The way that healthcare services are organised and delivered (termed 'healthcare delivery arrangements') is a key aspect of a health system. Changing the way health care is delivered, for example, task shifting that delivers the same care at lower cost, may be one way of improving healthcare system sustainability. We synthesised the existing randomised trial evidence to compare the effects of alternative healthcare delivery arrangements versus usual care in Nepal.