An Investigation Into the Use of Emergency Medical Services by People With Back Pain

Purpose and Design

Back Pain is a common cause of chronic pain and disability. National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE, 2016) identify it as affecting 1 in 10 people and causing more disability than any other condition. Whilst in most people it resolves without any healthcare input in can be distressing and debilitating. For those whose pain has not improved with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) combined physical and psychological treatments are recommended. These are provided by specialist services and are not available in Emergency Departments or via Ambulance Services (collectively referred to as Emergency Medical Services) however anecdotally many people with back pain self-refer to these services. The prevalence of people self-referring and their characteristics are currently unknown as these figures are not routinely reported although the information exists within the data collected by ambulance services.

This study aims to analyse anonymised data from the North East Ambulance Service NHS Trust (NEAS) to establish the prevalence of those calling with back pain. The characteristics of people presenting to the North East Ambulance Service (NEAS) over a 12-month period with back pain will be described and compared to a comparison group (people presenting with cardiovascular accident (CVA)) to identify statistically significant characteristics. The comparison group of CVA was chosen as this group is well defined, cannot be definitively treated in the community and require rapid transfer to in-patient care.

These characteristics may help target information and inform service design to meet those people with back pain not accessing specialist services that are more appropriate for their condition.

Research Methods