Development and testing of a comprehensive conceptual model to understand the prognosis and course of low back pain

Low-back pain (LBP) is a disabling and costly condition. Previous research models and individual research findings have had limited success in helping us understand patterns of LBP (the course of how LBP progresses over time), and clues that identify individuals that are likely to have better or worse outcomes. This understanding is essential for developing successful management strategies. Therefore, a new model or framework to guide LBP management and future research is needed; this study will develop and test such a model. To make sure the developed model is comprehensive and useful in practice, a variety of information sources will be used: a comprehensive and systematic review of the available literature will pull together the current state-of-the-art on this topic, with new analytical techniques used to draw together information from each individual study; these strategies will help to deal with limitations in the data and make the best use of the existing knowledge. The developed model will then be tested to identify important gaps using information from individual patients' experiences, gathered using qualitative research methods. Finally the model will be further tested using available data from a 6-year Canada-wide survey. This study will be important to inform clinical practice and future research in this important area.