Figure 1

Study design. The vertical grey arrow represents the date of index diagnosis of lumbar disc herniation (LDH) or lumbosacral radiculopathy (LSR). Assessment windows to the left of this arrow represent time periods occurring before this date over a span of days [#,#]. The ‘∞’ indicates that the time window extends as far as data are available in the dataset for each patient. The follow-up window occurs after the index diagnosis and is represented by a green rectangle representing 1-year and 2-year follow-up. Figure created by RT using Creative Commons template from Schneeweiss et al.⁷⁴