A new approach for measuring the personal and societal burden of back pain
Proposed by: Rachelle Buchbinder, Richard H. Osborne, Clermont E. Dionne, and Emma Irvin

Very few studies have attempted to simultaneously investigate how back pain impacts individuals, their families, the health care system, and society. The aim of this workshop will be to develop a comprehensive system to estimate the impacts and overall burden of back pain on individuals, their families, and the community. Prior to the Forum, a series of stakeholder concept mapping workshops will be conducted to derive sets of statements characterizing how back pain affects the life of people with the condition and the community. These will then be sorted into conceptually similar groups and two-dimensional maps of key dimensions of back pain impact will be generated using multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis. These results will be sent to LBP workshop participants and others to first audit the groupings and then comment on the concepts (and map) that will be derived. At the workshop, we will obtain consensus for the final concept map, check for any missing domains/concepts, and generate items that will form the basis for the Back Pain – Quest (BP-Quest). After the workshop, participants will ideally have the ability to field test the draft items in their settings. A manuscript describing the process and outcomes of this work will be circulated to workshop participants for comment. This workshop will provide a timely opportunity for researchers interested in measuring the impacts and overall burden of back pain to further our understanding of the issues and set priorities for future research.

12/01/08