Observational studyPloS one2022
Spinal pain patients seeking care in primary care and referred to physiotherapy: A cross-sectional study on patients characteristics, referral information and physiotherapy care offered by general practitioners and physiotherapists in France.
Observational study in PloS one, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT04177121 (Qualitative Analysis Based on Medical Records of 300 Patients With Back Musculoskeletal Disorders Receiving a Physiotherapy Prescription From Primary Physicians in France), which is not on this map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Qualitative Analysis Based on Medical Records of 300 Patients With Back Musculoskeletal Disorders Receiving a Physiotherapy Prescription From Primary Physicians in France
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed, 2 citations in OpenAlex.
- Measuring guideline adherence in physiotherapy: A scoping review of methodological approaches.Journal of evaluation in clinical practice · 2025Article
- First-contact physiotherapists' perceived competency in a new model of care for low back pain patients: a mixed methods study.Archives of physiotherapyArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesTo describe spinal pain patients referred by their treating general practitioners to physiotherapy care, examine to which extent physiotherapy interventions proposed by general practitioners and physiotherapists were compliant to evidence based recommendations, and evaluate concordance between providers in terms of diagnosis and contraindications to physiotherapy interventions.
methodsThis study included spinal pain patients recruited from a random sample of sixty French physiotherapists. Physiotherapists were asked to supply patients' physiotherapy records and characteristics from the general practitioner's physiotherapy referral for the five new consecutive patients referred to physiotherapy. General practitioner's physiotherapy referral and physiotherapists' clinical findings characteristics were analyzed and compared to evidence-based recommendations using Chi-squared tests. Cohen's kappas were calculated for diagnosis and contraindications to physiotherapy interventions.
resultsThree hundred patients with spinal pain were included from sixty physiotherapists across France. The mean age of the patients was 48.0 ± 7.2 years and 53% were female. The most common spinal pain was low back pain (n = 147). Diagnoses or reason of referral formulated by general practitioners were present for 27% of all patients (n = 82). Compared to general practitioners, physiotherapists recommended significantly more frequently recommended interventions such as education, spinal exercises or manual therapy. General practitioners prescribed significantly more frequently passive physiotherapy approaches such as massage therapy and electrotherapy. The overall proportion of agreement beyond chance for identification of a diagnosis or reason of referral was 41% with a weak concordance (κ = 0.19; 95%CI: 0.08-0.31). The overall proportion of compliant physiotherapists was significantly higher than for general practitioners (76.7% vs 47.0%; p<0.001).
conclusionsWe found that information required for the referral of spinal pain patients to physiotherapy is often incomplete. The majority of general practitioners did not conform to evidence-based recommendations in terms of prescribed specific physiotherapy care; in contrast to a majority of physiotherapists.
trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov: NCT04177121.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.