Utility of Checklist for Low Back Pain History

Abstract

Background: Traditionally, clinical teaching pertaining to history taking skills from patient with low back pain is taught to postgraduate physiotherapy students. However, history obtained by various students may differ and hence there is need for an instrument that can be used to obtain standard history. Objectives: Primary objective of this study was to find out the utility of investigator developed checklist in low back pain history taking by Postgraduate Physiotherapy students. Secondary objective of this study was to find out students perception about this checklist. Methods: Postgraduate students were asked to take focused history about low back pain from a standardised patient and their performance was recorded with the 28 items checklist. After this, they were provided a copy of checklist to read and then they were requested to re-obtain the history. Results: An average score without reading the checklist was 17/28 and after reading the checklist and this score was 22/28 when they re-obtained the history. 100% of students liked this way of obtaining the history from low back pain patients and 17% of students felt that this will increase paper work dependency and will limit creative thinking. Conclusion: The use of checklist may serve as a valuable tool in low back pain history taking skills.