Acute low back pain: patients' perceptions of pain four weeks after initial diagnosis and treatment in general practice.

In a nationwide study of the treatment of acute low back pain with and without radiation in general practice in the Netherlands the subjective well-being of patients was evaluated by means of a short questionnaire sent to patients four weeks after the initial contact with their general practitioner.

After this period pain had disappeared in 28% of the patients, was diminished in 47%, was unchanged in 2% and was aggravated in 4%. There was no difference in the pain score of patients with and without follow-up encounters with their general practitioner. In all instances patients with low back pain without radiation fared significantly better than those with radiation. Radiation of pain was not constant — during the four-week follow-up period it developed in 19% of the patients originally without radiation and it disappeared in 44% of the patients originally suffering radiation.