Non-specific low back pain has become a major public health problem worldwide. The
lifetime prevalence of low back pain is reported to be as high as 84%, and the prevalence of …

Chronic back pain is among the most common patient complaints. Its prevalence and impact
have spawned a rapidly expanding range of tests and treatments. Some of these have …

Recommendation 1: Clinicians should conduct a focused history and physical examination
to help place patients with low back pain into 1 of 3 broad categories: nonspecific low back …

This article has been corrected. The original version (PDF) is appended to this article as a
supplement. Diagnostic imaging is indicated for patients with low back pain only if they have …

Background Patient satisfaction is a widely used health care quality metric. However, the
relationship between patient satisfaction and health care utilization, expenditures, and …

Background Some clinicians do lumbar imaging routinely or in the absence of historical or
clinical features suggestive of serious low-back problems. We investigated the effects of …

Objective To determine the prevalence of serious pathology in patients presenting to primary
care settings with acute low back pain, and to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of …

Most patients presenting with uncomplicated acute low back pain (LBP) and/or
radiculopathy do not require imaging. Imaging is considered in those patients who have had …

A fundamental implication of standard moral hazard models is overuse of low-value medical
care because copays are lower than costs. In these models, the demand curve alone can be …

Low back pain is usually nonspecific or mechanical. Mechanical low back pain arises
intrinsically from the spine, intervertebral disks, or surrounding soft tissues. Clinical clues, or …