A new study investigating the impact of a novel treatment for chronic back pain sufferers has stirred interest amongst the Allied Health Professional community. Head of the National Self Management Association, Dr Hans Onmyown excitedly broke down the study for us. “The researchers investigated the influence of a single intervention on back pain patients’ dependency on healthcare services”.

The context from which the impetus for this study arose is interesting. An analysis of expenditure on chronic back pain shows that while as a nation we are spending more and more on chronic back pain each year, there has not been a concomitant reduction in its incidence. In fact, in recent years, there has been a growing concern that chronic back pain may be iatrogenic- meaning that collectively, our healthcare system may be contributing to its proliferation.

How could that be so? It has been reasonably argued that patients who interact with the healthcare system might contract unhelpful beliefs about the cause, and best solution for their chronic back pain. The unhelpful beliefs drive patients to continue pursuing and accessing expensive care that is at best transiently effective, and at worst, ineffective and possibly harmful.

Lead author of the study, Professor Rupert Longbottom spoke with the Good Health Tribune saying, “We came up with a novel strategy for getting patients to manage their own back pain. Ultimately, we hoped to negate the negative effects of interacting with potentially iatrogenic treatment pathways. The results of our study have been remarkable- 100% of our test subjects reported that they ‘felt no dependency on a healthcare provider for the management of current or future back pain.’”

Dr Onmyown enthusiastically explained that the beauty of the study was that it ensured that patients had no chance of contracting any unhelpful beliefs from “dimwitted, fucktard healthcare providers.” He went on to explain that “The researchers achieved this by getting their test subjects to enrol in and complete their own Physiotherapy degree. They hypothesised that if chronic back pain patients became Physiotherapists themselves, they would be able to treat themselves and would have no reason to interact with what we all know is an utterly useless and self serving healthcare system, full of hapless muppet practitioners who prey on the bank accounts of vulnerable patients. And it turns out they were right! All of the test subjects measured 100% self-efficacious with respect to their back pain”.

Dr Onmyown looked more confused than we’d expect a Doctor to look when we asked if turning patients into physios was truly the most efficient solution to the problem at hand. And when we inquired about the extent to which the test subjects who had stopped accessing services in favour of self managing their pain, were still battling chronic back pain, he shuffled uncomfortably and replied sharply “The data doesn’t speak to that question. Whether or not patients still have pain is irrelevant. The focus was the maximising of patient self-efficacy and reduction in societal health costs- as it should be”.