The Ability of Chronic Pain Patients to Self-diagnose Their Chief Source of Low Back Pain

Completed · Not applicable

Conditions studied: Chronic Low Back Pain

In brief

The investigative team will provide 27 slides with bullet points and images of pain referral patterns for different causes (e.g., herniated disc, facet joint arthritis) for patients seen for a new visit with a chief complaint of chronic low back pain. This material is all publicly available but has been compiled in presentation form. This will have educational benefit for patients, discussing clinical signs and symptoms, risk factors and basic treatments. There will also be a smaller control group of that gets a condensed 4-slide presentation. After review of the slides, an independent observer will ask the patient what they think are the 2 most likely causes of their LBP (in order of likelihood) and match that with the attending physician and trainee, who will independently do the same. The investigative team will then determine how concordant the patient's answers are with the physicians and also record outcomes.

Key facts

Study ID

NCT06630676

Run by

Northwestern University

People needed

288

Starts

2024-10-16

Expected to finish

2026-05-15

Last updated by the study team

2026-05-19

Who can join

Age: 18 and older. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: not accepted.

You may qualify if…

• • Age > 18 years
• Primary complaint of LBP or sciatica
• Duration of LBP > 3 months

You may not qualify if…

• • Referral for a specific diagnostic procedure or who present with a pre-established diagnosis
• Inability to understand written English

Where it is running

• Northwestern University Pain Management Center — Chicago, Illinois, United States
• University of Washington — Seattle, Washington, United States

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

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