Articles: back-pain.
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Meeting patient expectations is believed to impact satisfaction scores; however, the influence of achieving a minimum clinically important difference (MCID) is scarcely reported. This study aims to evaluate meeting patient expectations or MCID achievement for pain and disability as predictors of patient satisfaction. ⋯ Meeting preoperative expectations and achievement of an MCID for pain and disability measures was significantly associated with satisfaction. Achievement of MCID may be a more consistent and suitable replacement as a predictor of satisfaction over meeting patient expectations.
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Spinal epidural abscess (SEA) patients have increased medical comorbidities and risk factors for infection compared with those without SEA. However, the association between frailty and SEA patients has not been documented. ⋯ Patients with SEA were more frail compared with the control back pain patients. Frailty was determined to be an independent risk factor for SEA, outside of the CRFs. The use of the mFI could be potentially useful in predicting the diagnosis, prognosticating, and guiding SEA treatment.