Chronic low back pain treatment in Brazil: inequalities and associated factors

Chronic low back pain (LBP) is one of the most common diseases in the world and one of the leading causes of years of life lost due to disability. Despite being a major public health concern, studies on access to and use of different types of treatment are scarce. The aim of this article is to describe the most common treatments for chronic LBP in Brazil, examine the factors associated with the use of these treatments, and discuss possible inequalities in the use of physical therapy/exercise and medications. A descriptive analysis was performed using data from the 2013 National Health Survey. Multiple logistic regression was conducted to determine the association between treatment use and demographic, socioeconomic, health status, access to health services, and geographical characteristics. People with higher education were 2.39 times more likely to do physiotherapy. However, no association was found between education level and medication use. People in social class A/B were almost twice as likely to do physical therapy. However, there was no association between social status and medication use. People with a very high or high degree of functional limitation were 3.5 times more likely to use medication. However, no association was observed between functional limitation and physical therapy use.