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How does individualised physiotherapy work for people with low back pain? A Bayesian Network analysis using randomised controlled trial data

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posted on 2021-11-05, 04:47 authored by BXW Liew, Jon FordJon Ford, M Scutari, Andrew HahneAndrew Hahne
Purpose Individualised physiotherapy is an effective treatment for low back pain. We sought to determine how this treatment works by using randomised controlled trial data to develop a Bayesian Network model. Methods 300 randomised controlled trial participants (153 male, 147 female, mean age 44.1) with low back pain (of duration 6-26 weeks) received either individualised physiotherapy or advice. Variables with potential to explain how individualised physiotherapy works were included in a multivariate Bayesian Network model. Modelling incorporated the intervention period (0-10 weeks after study commencement-"early"changes) and the follow-up period (10-52 weeks after study commencement-"late"changes). Sequences of variables in the Bayesian Network showed the most common direct and indirect recovery pathways followed by participants with low back pain receiving individualised physiotherapy versus advice. Results Individualised physiotherapy directly reduced early disability in people with low back pain. Individualised physiotherapy exerted indirect effects on pain intensity, recovery expectations, sleep, fear, anxiety, and depression via its ability to facilitate early improvement in disability. Early improvement in disability, led to an early reduction in depression both directly and via more complex pathways involving fear, recovery expectations, anxiety, and pain intensity. Individualised physiotherapy had its greatest influence on early change variables (during the intervention period). Conclusion Individualised physiotherapy for low back pain appears to work predominately by facilitating an early reduction in disability, which in turn leads to improvements in other biopsychosocial outcomes. The current study cannot rule out that unmeasured mechanisms (such as tissue healing or reduced inflammation) may mediate the relationship between individualised physiotherapy treatment and improvement in disability. Further data-driven analyses involving a broad range of plausible biopsychosocial variables are recommended to fully understand how treatments work for people with low back pain.

History

Publication Date

2021-10-11

Journal

PLoS ONE

Volume

16

Issue

10

Article Number

e0258515

Pagination

16p.

Publisher

Public Library of Science

ISSN

1932-6203

Rights Statement

© 2021 Liew et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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