Maladaptive Low Back Pain Intervention Beliefs Influence Pain Interference and Physical Function- IASP World Congress 2024

Rhon d, George s, parsons n, fritz j

Abstract accepted at the IASP 2024 World Congres on Pain.

Patients beliefs about low back pain can affect perceived harms and benefits of various treatment options. This can subsequently influence the patient’s level of engagement with interventions and the treatment effectiveness. When receiving care, a greater emphasis on the biomedical model could lead to surgery being seen as one of the only acceptable interventions. Similarly, from a biomedical perspective, exercise could be seen as potentially exacerbating rather than helping low back pain. In contrast, patients who don’t perceive surgery to be an effective solution or understand that exercise can help improve their symptoms, may engage at a higher level with evidence-based treatments. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the influence of healthy versus maladaptive beliefs about surgery and exercise as interventions for low back pain. Specifically, we aimed to assess the relationship between these beliefs and self-reported pain interference and physical function outcomes.

Maladaptive beliefs about treatment have the potential to adversely influence pain and physical function outcomes in the short term out to six months. Patients receiving care for low back pain who believed that surgery would be beneficial or that exercise would be harmful improved significantly less than patients who felt otherwise. The ability to better understand and address patient beliefs about treatment effectiveness may present an opportunity to improve engagement with interventions and subsequently treatment outcomes.