ArticleEmergency medicine Australasia : EMA2026
Pathology Testing for Patients With Low Back Pain in Australian Emergency Departments.
Article in Emergency medicine Australasia : EMA, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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7 authors.
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Abstract
objectiveWe aimed to describe the profile of patients with low back pain who received pathology testing in emergency departments or after inpatient admission, and to describe the ordered tests.
methodsA retrospective study of electronic medical records from three emergency departments in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, from January 2016 to October 2021, was undertaken. We included patients diagnosed with a lumbar spine condition at discharge from the emergency department and extracted their demographic and episode of care characteristics.
resultsPathology tests were ordered in 23.8% of 15,300 episodes of care. Patients who received pathology testing were typically older, were female, had a non-English preferred language, required an interpreter, arrived by ambulance during working hours, had their condition triaged as urgent, had a diagnosis of a serious low back pain pathology, were admitted to inpatient wards, and had an increased length of stay. Full blood count, electrolytes, urea, creatinine (EUC) and liver function tests were the most ordered tests.
conclusionsThe characteristics of patients with low back pain receiving pathology testing in emergency departments as well as those of the tests were described. The results suggest that guideline recommendations were partly followed, but an investigation into the appropriateness of pathology testing is needed to confirm this hypothesis and ensure the relevance of low back pain care in emergency departments.
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