ArticleAnnals of emergency medicine2025
Usual Care for Low Back Pain at United States Emergency Departments, 2016-2022.
Article in Annals of emergency medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT07735663 (The Effect of Pain Neuroscience Education in Masters PA Medicine Education), which is not on this map. Cited by 1 paper.
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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.
The Effect of Pain Neuroscience Education in Masters PA Medicine Education
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
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2 authors.
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Abstract
STUDY
objectivesLow back pain is a common reason for visiting the emergency department (ED). Updated and reliable national estimates of usual care for low back pain are needed to identify research and quality improvement priorities to improve patient outcomes and reduce low-value emergency care.
methodsThis is a cross-sectional study of the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey from 2016 to 2022. We identified ED visits with a back pain-related reason for visit and used the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care sampling weights to produce national estimates of usual diagnostic and therapeutic care variables.
resultsFrom 2016 to 2022, there were an estimated 52.8 million ED visits for low back pain (mean age 45.4 years, 60.3% women, 56.4% non-Hispanic White, and 31.1% Medicaid), accounting for 5.3% of all ED visits. The mean numeric pain score of ED visits for back pain was 7.2 out of 10; 13.7% of visits arrived by ambulance and 40.4% were related to injury or trauma. Mean waiting room time and total ED length of stay were 36.5 and 236.6 minutes, respectively. In 2016, opioids were administered or prescribed in 35.0% and 32.5% of visits for back pain, respectively, and by 2022, opioids were administered or prescribed in 24.5% and 13.5% of visits, respectively. Radiographs were obtained in 39.4% of ED visits. Both opioid prescribing and radiographs were most prevalent in patients 75 years or older.
conclusionThis study presents updated and reliable national estimates of usual diagnostic and therapeutic emergency care for low back pain from 2016 to 2022, which may be used for national benchmarking and quality improvement efforts.
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