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. 2021 Dec;16(1):1861719.
doi: 10.1080/17482631.2020.1861719.

Patients' experiences of the BetterBack model of care for low back pain in primary care - a qualitative interview study

Paul Enthoven  1 , Fredrik Eddeborn  1   2 , Allan Abbott  1 , Karin Schröder  1 , Maria Fors  1   3 , Birgitta Öberg  1
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Patients' experiences of the BetterBack model of care for low back pain in primary care - a qualitative interview study

Paul Enthoven et al. Int J Qual Stud Health Well-being. 2021 Dec.

Abstract

Purpose: The aim of this study was to describe patient experiences of received primary care for low back pain (LBP) according to the BetterBack Model of Care (MoC) with a focus on illness beliefs and self-management enablement. Methods: Individual interviews were conducted with 15 adults 4-14 months after receiving treatment according to the BetterBack MoC for LBP in primary care in Sweden. Data were analysed using content analysis. Results: When analysing the data, the following theme emerged; "Participant understanding of their treatment for low back pain and self-management strategies-a matter of support systems", comprising the following categories: "Knowledge translation", "Interaction and dialogue", "The health care professional support" and "Form organization". Participants experienced that they had better knowledge about their LBP and received tools to better manage their health condition. The participants expressed good communication with the treating physiotherapist and provided suggestions to further improve the treatment of LBP. Conclusions: Participants experienced that they had gained new knowledge about their health problems and after the treatment they had the tools to handle their back problems. This suggests that the BetterBack MoC may be used as a basis for a support system to provide valuable tools for self-management for patients with low back pain.

Keywords: Low back pain; common-sense model; education; health care professionals; physiotherapy; primary care; qualitative interview; reassurance; self-efficacy; self-management.

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Conflict of interest statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Overall theme, categories, and subcategories of the qualitative content analysis (no text below Figure 1)
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