The prediction of chronicity in patients with an acute attack of low back pain in a general practice setting.

Study Design: Three hundred patients, attending their general practitioners with attacks of acute low back pain, formed the subject population for a study of fear avoidance and other variables in the prediction of chronicity. Follow-up was at 2 and 12 months.

Objective: The hypothesis to be tested was that evidence of psychological morbidity, particularly fear-avoidance behavior, would be manifest from the outset of the presenting attack in susceptible subjects.