Is Patient Choice of Exercise Preference Important in Chronic Neck Pain? A Randomized Clinical Study

Nonspecific chronic neck pain is the third most frequent problem in Spain. It has an annual presence between 15% and 50% where women are the most affected. This pain influences the psychosocial state of the person. Physical exercise has been shown to be effective in a wide variety of chronic pain conditions, including improving quality of life and emotional problems. Design: Single-blind, controlled, randomized clinical trial. Methods: The study will be approached in the Faculty of Nursing and Physiotherapy of the University of Alcalá. 52 subjects with nonspecific chronic neck pain will be selected and randomly divided into two groups. The first group should perform 5 exercises that have been shown to be effective in the management of neck pain selected by the physiotherapist focused on neck pain. The second group must choose, from a list of exercises that have been shown to be effective in the management of neck pain, 5 exercises. Both groups should record the pain, the number of repetitions and the series performed. The duration of the intervention will be a total of 8 weeks with evaluations pre-intervention, post-intervention and 4 weeks after the end of the intervention. The objective of this study is to evaluate if the exercise chosen by the patient is better than the exercises selected by the physiotherapist for the variables chronic neck pain, strength of the affected muscles, kinesiophobia and adherence to treatment.