The Nordic maintenance care program: maintenance care reduces the number of days with pain in acute episodes and increases the length of pain free periods for dysfunctional patients with recurrent and persistent low back pain - a secondary analysis of a pragmatic randomized controlled trial

doi:10.1186/s12998-020-00309-6

Table 1

Eligibility Screening in a study of patients with recurrent or persistent low back pain from a randomized clinical trial investigating the comparative effectiveness of chiropractic maintenance care

Time point

Inclusion criteria

Exclusion criteria

Baseline 1 (1st visit)

Age 18–65 years.

LBP with or without leg pain for altogether more than 30 days during the previous year.

Previous episodes.

Access to a mobile phone.

Ability to send and receive SMS (text messages).

Pregnancy.

Chiropractic treatment less than 3 months previously.

Completely subsidized treatment from 3rd party payer.

Serious pathology (i.e. acute trauma, cancer, infection, cauda equina, osteoporosis, vertebral fractures) or other contraindications to manual therapy.

Baseline 2 (4th visit)

Self-rated “definitely improved”

Baseline 3 (Study start)

Interval between treatments (after the 4th visit) can be scheduled 1 month or more.

LBP non-specific low back pain (Table reproduced from study protocol, approved by authors [22]