Understanding Sciatica
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Understanding illness beliefs and exercise treatment beliefs in a lumbar radicular pain population
IRAS ID
229145
Contact name
Robert Goldsmith
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Bangor University
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
2017-16103, Bangor University Ethics application number
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
Many people suffer from lumbar radicular pain (‘Sciatica’). For some people the pain will resolve naturally in a few weeks, for others it can stay for months or become permanent. Treatment options include medication (tablets), Physiotherapy, spinal injections or surgery. It is not clear which is the best treatment. Some treatments, such as surgery, carry significant risk and cost.
One low-risk treatment option is performing exercise with the help and support of a physiotherapist. This can be challenging for someone in pain. Often people are reluctant to try exercise because they are afraid (e.g.. of causing damage or more pain) or perhaps nobody has explained how exercise might help them.
Understanding what people think and feel about what is causing their sciatica, how effective treatments options are, how safe they feel it is to exercise, what difficulties they think they might experience when doing exercise, as well as how they think they might overcome these difficulties is the focus of this project. It may help design better ways to explain what is being offered, provide reassurance and support people experiencing sciatica. This is likely to improve the confidence of people with sciatica to perform exercises. This is likely to improve how well the exercise treatment works.
We plan to interview 10-15 patients with sciatica to explore their thoughts and feelings about what causes sciatica and how they feel about doing exercise. We will analyse the results and share this with doctors and physiotherapists working in the NHS, so they can be better at supporting people with sciatica.
REC name
Wales REC 7
REC reference
17/WA/0363
Date of REC Opinion
8 Nov 2017
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion