[Therapy of patients with chronic back pain. Prescriptions--contentment--outcome]

Chronic back pain is a frequent complaint in out-patient orthopaedic practice. National (DEGAM; German Society of General Medicine and Family Medicine) and international guidelines provide recommendations for diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. Regulation of the behaviour of treating orthopaedists in the context of the therapy is so far little known.In this survey it was investigated which treatments are prescribed, whether there is a link between regulations and stage of chronification and whether the subjective effects correspond to objective results. Questionnaires relating to patient anamnesis were sent to 235 orthopaedic practices and a second questionnaire was sent to all patients who took part in the survey 6 months later. A total of 630 data sets could be evaluated.It was shown that primarily passive therapies (physiotherapy, drug therapy, injections and tablets) are mostly prescribed (physiotherapy, medications, injections) and that more therapies are used with increasing stages of chronification. The prescribed therapy achieved a high subjective patient satisfaction but an objective success could not be recognized.