A Consensus Approach Toward the Standardization of Back Pain Definitions for Use in Prevalence Studies

In Brief Study Design. A modified Delphi study conducted with 28 experts in back pain research from 12 countries. Objective. To identify standardized definitions of low back pain that could be consistently used by investigators in prevalence studies to provide comparable data. Summary of Background Data. Differences in the definition of back pain prevalence in population studies lead to heterogeneity in study findings, and limitations or impossibilities in comparing or summarizing prevalence figures from different studies. Methods. Back pain definitions were identified from 51 articles reporting population-based prevalence studies, and dissected into 77 items documenting 7 elements. These items were submitted…

• UD
  U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
• MU
  McGill University
• CU
  Cardiff University
• UO
  University of Aberdeen
• MU
  Monash University
• MU
  Murdoch University
• VU
  Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
• EM
  Erasmus Medisch Centrum
• UO
  University of Toronto
• KU
  Keele University
• UH
  Universität Hamburg
• TI
  Technion-Israel Institute of Technology
• SU
  Syddansk Universitet