BMJ quality & safety
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To describe the diagnoses of people who present to the emergency department (ED) with low back pain (LBP), the proportion of people with a lumbar spine condition who arrived by ambulance, received imaging, opioids and were admitted to hospital; and to explore factors associated with these four outcomes. ⋯ Many ED presentations of LBP were not due to a lumbar spine condition. Of those that were, we noted relatively high rates of lumbar imaging, opioid use and hospital admission.