Social work in health care when conventional meets complementary: nonspecific back pain and massage therapy

Through years of engagement within health, the profession of social work has worked diligently to influence and incorporate the professional values of holism and biopsychosocial-spiritual approaches into mainstream health care to support health care consumers. Continuing education supports social workers' specialized knowledge of health conditions as well as issues affecting health care systems and delivery. Two pressing and current issues in health of concern to social work are (1) nonspecific back pain and (2) the fastest growing consumer trend in North America--integration of complementary and alternative medicine. This article offers information relevant to social workers in practice about the complex and multifactoral condition of chronic nonspecific back pain and the integration of complementary and alternative medicine, in particular, massage therapy, as an effective evidence-based integrated approach.