The SETBack study - Low back pain and self-management experiences
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The reported self-management experiences of people with persistent or recurring back pain returning to healthcare services.
IRAS ID
339261
Contact name
Lisa Osborn-Jenkins
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Southampton
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
GRT0723, University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust (UHS) Research & Development PhD Fellowship
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 5 months, 30 days
Research summary
Low back pain is the world-leading cause of disability. Most people (65%) have low back symptoms that reoccur or continue a year after onset. Back pain often persists and is now thought of as a long-term condition rather than separate episodes. As many as 10 million people are estimated to live with persistent back pain in the UK. Many people with back pain (58%) will seek healthcare. This combined effect of lots of people with back pain, high-recurrence rates and high care-seeking behaviours makes back pain a burden to individuals and primary care health services.
Clinical guidelines for back pain strongly recommend self-management but do not specify the content of self-management advice, nor how to manage patients when the advice given has been ineffective. There is a specific gap in the literature about the needs of people returning to services who may have had trouble with self-management. Therefore, this research aims to explore patients’ reported experiences of self-management for persistent or recurring low back pain to better understand their perceived needs and why they return to primary care services.
In this qualitative study data will be collected using semi-structure interviews either virtually (using telephone or Microsoft Team software) or face-to-face. The sample with comprise of up to 12 adults from a UK NHS setting. These adults will have previous care episodes, and either be waiting for repeat treatment or within a care episode for low back pain. Using purposive sampling to achieve maximum variation, interviews will explore from the patients’ experience of self-management and returning to healthcare services for persistent or recurring back pain. Reflexive thematic analysis will be both inductive and deductive. This will allow the analysis to be both descriptive, theoretically informed, and analytical to produce a detailed account of patients’ perceptions supported by direct quotes to answer the research question.
REC name
London - Camden & Kings Cross Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
24/PR/0466
Date of REC Opinion
24 Apr 2024
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion