Abstract
BackgroundPersonal convictions in referral to pain cause misbeliefs in health professionals, which can influence patients who suffer from non-specific chronic low back pain. Likewise, health professionals’ beliefs affect their advice and attitudes towards patients’ treatment, becoming a possible cause of greater disability. The development of educational interventions based on the best scientific evidence in neurophysiology of pain could be a way to provide information and advice to primary care health professionals to change their cognition towards chronic non-specific low back pain. The use of Information and Communication Technologies allows the development of web sites, which might be one of the effective resources to modify misbeliefs and attitudes, in relation to the origin and meaning of non-specific chronic low back pain, of primary care professionals and that may modify their attitudes in patients’ treatment.MethodsThe aim of this project is to identify misbeliefs and attitudes of primary care physicians and nurses about chronic non-specific low back pain to develop a web-based educational tool using different educational formats and gamification techniques. This study has a mixed-method sequential exploratory design. The participants are medical and nursing staff working in primary care centers in the city of Lleida, Spain. For the qualitative phase of this study, the authors will use personal semi-structured interviews. For the quantitative phase the authors will use an experimental study design. Subjects will be randomly allocated using a simple random sample technique. The intervention group will have access to the web site where they will find information related to non-specific chronic low back pain, based on the information obtained in the qualitative phase. The control group will have access to a video explaining the clinical practice guidelines on low back pain.DiscussionThis study has been designed to explore and modify the beliefs and attitudes about chronic low back pain of physicians and nurses working in primary care settings, using a web-based educational tool with different educational formats and gamification techniques. The aim of the educational intervention is to change their knowledge about the origin and meaning of pain, with the result of reducing their misbeliefs and attitudes of fear avoidance.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02962817. Date of registration: 11/09/2016.
Highlights
Personal convictions in referral to pain cause misbeliefs in health professionals, which can influence patients who suffer from non-specific chronic low back pain
It is estimated that 60–90% of the adult population will experience Low back pain (LBP) at some point in their lives and that between 5 and 10% will develop chronic low back pain (CLBP), defined by the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) as the pain that is lasting more than 12 weeks [1, 2, 8, 9]
As a consequence of the exposed previously and based on the results obtained by our research team [35], the objective of this study is to explore the health professionals (HP)’ misbeliefs and attitudes towards the treatment and management of non-specific chronic low back pain (NCLBP) in primary care (PC) to develop a web-based educational tool, based on the Neurophysiology Pain (NPP)
Summary
Personal convictions in referral to pain cause misbeliefs in health professionals, which can influence patients who suffer from non-specific chronic low back pain. Fear towards pain is associated with avoidance behaviors, which have a negative impact on NCLBP, which it is strongly associated with disability, physical inactivity, increased drug dependence and overuse of medical services [14]. These avoidance behaviors in patients are reinforced by HP’ strong fear-avoidance beliefs, as they are more likely not to recommend or avoid physical and / or occupational activity and to prescribe passive treatments, sometimes resulting in an increased disability [14]. Due to the immediate consequences of fear-avoidance beliefs in relation to health and well being of patients suffering from NCLBP, it may be good for the health system to understand them and to act upon them [14]
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