Low-value interventions to deimplement: A secondary analysis of a systematic review of low back pain clinical practice guidelines.

Objective: To perform a secondary review of low back pain (LBP) clinical practice guidelines (CPG) identified in a recently conducted systematic review and to synthesize and summarize low-value recommendations as practices that may be candidates for deimplementation.

Literature Survey: LBP (subacute or chronic) CPGs in English (symptom based, created by a governmental or professional society, published between January 1990 and May 2020) were previously identified using MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, Ortho Guidelines, CPG Infobase, Emergency Care Research Institute, Guidelines International Network, National Institute of Health and Care Excellence, and Scottish Intercollegiate Guideline Network.

Methodology: Twenty-one CPGs were reviewed from a systematic review (previously published). Full-text review of all 21 CPGs was conducted, and three recommendation categories indicative of low value (recommend strongly against, recommend weakly against, inconclusive/insufficient evidence) were identified using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) language and approach.

Synthesis: One hundred thirty-five low-value recommendations were identified and classified under eight intervention categories: orthotics/support, traction, physical modalities, pharmacological interventions, injections, surgery, bed rest, and miscellaneous. Traction, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS), therapeutic ultrasound (TUS), and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) had the most CPGs recommend strongly against their usage. Opioids were recommended strongly against by four CPGs. No significant difference (p > .05) was found between CPG quality and a specific deimplementation recommendation or between CPG quality and the number of strongly against, weakly against, and inconclusive/insufficient evidence recommendations.

Conclusions: Clinicians managing patients with chronic LBP should consider deimplementing these low-value interventions (traction, TENS, TUS, and SSRI).