Long-term follow-up of patients with chronic back pain treated in a multidisciplinary rehabilitation program

The study evaluated the long-term outcomes of 129 chronic low back pain patients who had completed a multidisciplinary rehabilitation program.

Two major outcome issues were addressed--one related to the effectiveness of the program as measured by return to work, use of the medical system, and sense of well being, and the other concerning the stability of the outcome effect over time.

Other outcome studies have established the short-term effectiveness of rehabilitation programs such as the present one with between 50% and 75% of patients. However, long-term follow-up--i.e., 1 1/2 to 2 years or more--has been lacking to determine what happens later.

Graduates of the program were contacted by telephone to complete a 23-item questionnaire. Every effort was made to include all who had completed the program. Many had moved away or were inaccessible, but few of those contacted refused to participate.

An attempt was made to classify the job outcome into good, fair, and poor outcomes by weighting return to work, remaining at work, and continuing to look for work. Forty-nine percent of the sample attained a good job outcome, 13% a fair job outcome, and 38% a poor job outcome. Regarding general well-being, 53% reported doing better or much better, 27% reported being about the same, and 20% reported being worse or much worse at follow-up.

The results provide support for the efficacy of programs such as this.