The prognosis of acute and persistent low-back pain: a meta-analysis
Two pages on PainSci cite Costa 2012: 1. The Complete Guide to Low Back Pain 2. Chronic Low Back Pain Is Not So Chronic
original abstract †Abstracts here may not perfectly match originals, for a variety of technical and practical reasons. Some abstacts are truncated for my purposes here, if they are particularly long-winded and unhelpful. I occasionally add clarifying notes. And I make some minor corrections.
BACKGROUND: Although low-back pain is a highly prevalent condition, its clinical course remains uncertain. Our main objective was to systematically review the literature on the clinical course of pain and disability in patients with acute and persistent low-back pain. Our secondary objective was to investigate whether pain and disability have similar courses.
METHODS: We performed a meta-analysis of inception cohort studies. We identified eligible studies by searching MEDLINE, Embase and CINAHL. We included prospective studies that enrolled an episode-inception cohort of patients with acute or persistent low-back pain and that measured pain, disability or recovery. Two independent reviewers extracted data and assessed methodologic quality. We used mixed models to determine pooled estimates of pain and disability over time.
RESULTS: Data from 33 discrete cohorts (11 166 participants) were included in the review. The variance-weighted mean pain score (out of a maximum score of 100) was 52 (95% CI 48-57) at baseline, 23 (95% CI 21-25) at 6 weeks, 12 (95% CI 9-15) at 26 weeks and 6 (95% CI 3-10) at 52 weeks after the onset of pain for cohorts with acute pain. Among cohorts with persistent pain, the variance-weighted mean pain score (out of 100) was 51 (95% CI 44-59) at baseline, 33 (95% CI 29-38) at 6 weeks, 26 (95% CI 20-33) at 26 weeks and 23 (95% CI 16-30) at 52 weeks after the onset of pain. The course of disability outcomes was similar to the time course of pain outcomes in the acute pain cohorts, but the pain outcomes were slightly worse than disability outcomes in the persistent pain cohorts.
INTERPRETATION: Patients who presented with acute or persistent low-back pain improved markedly in the first six weeks. After that time improvement slowed. Low to moderate levels of pain and disability were still present at one year, especially in the cohorts with persistent pain.
related content
- “Acute low back pain: systematic review of its prognosis,” Pengel et al, British Medical Journal, 2003.
- “Clinical course and prognostic factors in acute low back pain: an inception cohort study in primary care practice,” Coste et al, British Medical Journal, 1994.
- “Prognosis for patients with chronic low back pain: inception cohort study,” Costa et al, British Medical Journal, 2009.
- “The annual incidence and course of neck pain in the general population: a population-based cohort study,” Côté et al, Pain, 2004.
This page is part of the PainScience BIBLIOGRAPHY, which contains plain language summaries of thousands of scientific papers & others sources. It’s like a highly specialized blog. A few highlights:
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