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Randomized Controlled Trial
. 2019 Feb 28;20(1):94.
doi: 10.1186/s12891-019-2467-6.

Prognostic ability of the German version of the STarT Back tool: analysis of 12-month follow-up data from a randomized controlled trial

Sven Karstens  1   2 , Katja Krug  3 , Heiner Raspe  4 , Max Wunderlich  5   6 , Martin Hochheim  5   6 , Stefanie Joos  7 , Angelika Hüppe  4
Affiliations
Randomized Controlled Trial

Prognostic ability of the German version of the STarT Back tool: analysis of 12-month follow-up data from a randomized controlled trial

Sven Karstens et al. BMC Musculoskelet Disord. .

Abstract

Background: Stratified care is an up-to-date treatment approach suggested for patients with back pain in several guidelines. A comprehensively studied stratification instrument is the STarT Back Tool (SBT). It was developed to stratify patients with back pain into three subgroups, according to their risk of persistent disabling symptoms. The primary aim was to analyse the disability differences in patients with back pain 12 months after inclusion according to the subgroups determined at baseline using the German version of the SBT (STarT-G). Moreover, the potential to improve prognosis for disability by adding further predictor variables, an analysis for differences in pain intensity according to the STarT-Classification, and discriminative ability were investigated.

Methods: Data from the control group of a randomized controlled trial were analysed. Trial participants were members of a private medical insurance with a minimum age of 18 and indicated as having persistent back pain. Measurements were made for the risk of back pain chronification using the STarT-G, disability (as primary outcome) and back pain intensity with the Chronic Pain Grade Scale (CPGS), health-related quality of life with the SF-12, psychological distress with the Patient Health Questionnaire-4 (PHQ-4) and physical activity. Analysis of variance (ANOVA), multiple linear regression, and area under the curve (AUC) analysis were conducted.

Results: The mean age of the 294 participants was 53.5 (SD 8.7) years, and 38% were female. The ANOVA for disability and pain showed significant differences (p < 0.01) among the risk groups at 12 months. Post hoc Tukey tests revealed significant differences among all three risk groups for every comparison for both outcomes. AUC for STarT-G's ability to discriminate reference standard 'cases' for chronic pain status at 12 months was 0.79. A prognostic model including the STarT-Classification, the variables global health, and disability at baseline explained 45% of the variance in disability at 12 months.

Conclusions: Disability differences in patients with back pain after a period of 12 months are in accordance with the subgroups determined using the STarT-G at baseline. Results should be confirmed in a study developed with the primary aim to investigate those differences.

Keywords: Back pain; Primary health care; Prognosis; Psychometrics; Questionnaire; STarT Back tool.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

All participants gave written informed consent. Ethical approval for the trial was granted by the Ethics Committee of the University of Luebeck (registration ID: 14/249).

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

SK, KK, MW, MH, SJ and AH declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Boxplots for STarT-G subgroups low-, medium- and high-risk groups versus CPGS at 12 months. CPGS = Chronic Pain Grade Scale, DS = disability score, STarT-G = German version of the STarT-Back Tool. n = 243
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
a to d Receiver operating characteristic curves. CPGS versus STarT-G total score and PHQ-4 versus STarT-G sub-score (baseline and 12 months). CPGS = Chronic Pain Grade Scale (dichotomized: Grade 0,I and II versus Grade III and IV), STarT-G = German version of the STarT-Back Tool, PHQ4 = Patient Health Questionnaire (4 items, dichotomized: none and mild versus moderate and severe psychological distress), 12 M = at 12 months. nA = 294, nB = 294, nC = 242, nD = 243
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Relations between STarT-G scores and reference instruments at baseline
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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