Canadian family physician Médecin de famille canadien
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To determine the proportion of chronic low back pain patients who achieve a clinically meaningful response from different pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic treatments. ⋯ Exercise, oral NSAIDs, and SNRIs (duloxetine) provide a clinically meaningful reduction in pain, with exercise being the only intervention that demonstrated sustained benefit after the intervention ended. Future high-quality trials that report responder analyses are required to provide a better understanding of the benefits and harms of interventions for patients with chronic low back pain.
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To assess the proportion of academic family physicians using e-mail with patients and to explore related attitudes, barriers, and facilitators. ⋯ E-mail use between academic family physicians and patients was found to be much higher than shown in previous studies of Canadian physicians. This finding might have been owing to unique aspects of academic medicine, remuneration via capitation, or other factors. Efforts to increase physician use of e-mail with patients should address concerns related to privacy and security, electronic medical record integration, and financial compensation.