McCrum, C.A.1,2, McGowan, J.F.1, Stenner, P.3, Cross, V.2 , Defever, E.2, Lloyd, P.4, Poole,

R. 4 & Moore, A.P.2

1 East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, UK; 2Centre for Health Research, University of Brighton, UK; 3 Faculty of Social Sciences,

The Open University, UK; 4 Patient representative.

• Chronic low back pain (CLBP) is very common and costly:

— Personal impact

— Disability

— Work loss

— Healthcare expenditure

• National guidelines encourage ‘self-management'

• Achieving effective self-management is challenging

• Partly due to patients and healthcare providers often having different

viewpoints…

Aim: To explore and identify the range of viewpoints of patients and

healthcare providers on self-management in CLBP

3 Those who do not try to self-manage in a responsible way should lose their rights to back pain treatments.

2 Successful self-management means coping on your own and not having to rely on health professionals.

1 Self-management means managing your pain rather than it managing you.

“Not sure what to change”

“Changing what I do”

“The others must change”

“Changing myself”

• Changing the “mind set”

• No “magic cure”

• Active life with the pain

• More than a medical matter

• Advice on tools & techniques

• Individually tailored treatment

“Not sure what to change”

“Changing what I do”

“The others must change”

“Changing myself”

• Not about coping alone

• Help as and when needed

• Image of being in chronic pain

• Proof of pain

• Cure for the pain

• Abandoned by the healthcare

• The viewpoints: diverse, complex and tensional

• Help patients and healthcare providers to recognise differing viewpoints

• Addressing these disparities will improve the services and accomplish better

self-management outcomes