-
Do visual pain trajectories reflect the actual course of low back pain? A longitudinal cohort study.
- Casper Glissmann Nim, Werner Vach, Aron Downie, and Alice Kongsted.
- Medical Research Unit, Spine Center of Southern Denmark, University Hospital of Southern Denmark, Middelfart, Denmark; Department of Regional Health Research, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark; Department of Sport Science and Clinical Biomechanics, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.
- J Pain. 2023 Aug 1; 24 (8): 150615211506-1521.
AbstractDifferent trajectories of low back pain (LBP) have been identified prospectively using repeated measures. For these trajectories to inform clinical practice, they must be available in the clinical consultation. Therefore, identified LBP trajectories have been translated into visual pain trajectories (VPTs) that allow people with LBP, at the time of consult, to reflect upon their pain experience and identify the VPT that best categorizes their pain course. We have limited knowledge regarding the extent to which a chosen VPT reflects the prospectively experienced trajectory. Thus, we explored the distribution of pain intensity and pain pattern characteristics (from prospective pain trajectory data) within the retrospectively chosen VPT classes. We enrolled patients with LBP from Danish chiropractic practice. Using SMS, participants (n = 719) scored their pain weekly on an 11-point numerical rating scale for 52 weeks. At week 52, participants identified 1 of 8 VPTs that reflected their perceived back pain trajectory during the preceding year. We found that the chosen VPTs reflected pain intensity, but that pain patterns (episodic, fluctuating, and persistent) were not systematically recognized, and the experienced course varied substantially amongst participants within the same VPT. The VPTs are related to some aspects of the experienced LBP course but are not a proxy for the SMS-measured trajectories. Reasons for apparent mismatches between the experienced course of LBP and VPT recall warrant further investigation. PERSPECTIVE: Self-reported back pain trajectories reflected pain intensities obtained through weekly SMS tracking over a year, but participants' recall did not reflect the pain patterns (episodes and fluctuations) discovered prospectively. Clinicians can use self-reported pain trajectories to facilitate a dialog about pain experience, but not as a proxy for prospective measures.Copyright © 2023 United States Association for the Study of Pain, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Notes
Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
- Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as
*italics*
,_underline_
or**bold**
. - Superscript can be denoted by
<sup>text</sup>
and subscript<sub>text</sub>
. - Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines
1. 2. 3.
, hyphens-
or asterisks*
. - Links can be included with:
[my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
- Images can be included with:
![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
- For footnotes use
[^1](This is a footnote.)
inline. - Or use an inline reference
[^1]
to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document[^1]: This is a long footnote.
.