Journal of Novel Physiotherapies
Open Access

Low back pain (LBP) is the main cause of years spent disabled across the world, putting a tremendous financial strain on individuals and health systems [1]. LBP's recurring nature is responsible for much of its burden, with at least one-third of persons reporting a recurrence of LBP within a year. Exercise is the only known strategy for avoiding LBP recurrence, with systematic studies finding that exercise reduced the incidence of LBP recurrence by 45 percent. The majority of LBP preventive studies, on the other hand, use extensive and intense regimens (eg, 20 sessions over a 13-week period). It's uncertain if a typical LBP sufferer would be ready to commit to such a programmer in order to lessen their chances of recurrence [2, 3, 4].

According to qualitative study, persons who suffer from LBP want to know how to prevent recurrence of their symptoms. However, little is known about how willing individuals in the community are to exercise in order to prevent LBP recurrence. Personal characteristics (e.g., general health, self-efficacy to exercise, and current exercise engagement), preferences for specific characteristics of exercise programmes (e.g., mode of delivery, supervision, and duration of the programme), the cost of the programme, and the extent to which the programme will reduce the risk of LBP may influence willingness to participate in prevention programmes. People preferred particular types of exercise (e.g., cardiovascular) that were done in a group and under supervision, according to one research [5]. That research, however, had a number of flaws. For starters, it failed to take into account essential aspects of an exercise programme that are likely to impact people's inclination to exercise, such as cost and prevention effect. Second, the study used a forced-choice paradigm, in which participants were not given the option of opting out of exercising, which is more realistic. Furthermore, despite the fact that exercise has been shown to reduce LBP recurrence in randomised studies, it is uncertain how much individuals are prepared to trade-off between specific exercise programme features and pay for exercise programmes to avoid LBP recurrence.

Understanding people's preferences for an exercise programme to prevent LBP recurrence should help physicians and policymakers develop more appealing preventive programmes, resulting in greater community participation. Discrete choice trials are a reliable and commonly used survey approach for eliciting healthcare preferences [6]. Discrete choice experiments are founded on the idea that commodities and services, including health services, may be defined by numerous qualities (attributes) and that level of those attributes impact the value or preference for that commodity or service [7].

Using a discrete choice experiment, this study looked at the preferences of persons with a recent history of LBP for exercise regimens to avoid future episodes of LBP. It looked at how programme elements and participant characteristics influenced their choices for LBP exercise prevention programmes, as well as their willingness to pay for them.

Conclusion

✔ People who suffer from low back pain frequently face a recurrence within a year. Exercise is the only strategy that has been shown to be useful in avoiding low back pain recurrence. Exercise regimens that are useful in preventing recurrence of low back pain are usually extensive and intense.

✔ People who have had low back pain are willing to use exercise to lower their risk of recurrence; nevertheless, they prefer exercise regimens that are not as well-known as those that are helpful.

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