The Effectiveness of a Physician-Led Web Portal on Back Pain: A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial.

IF 6.5 2区医学 Q1 MEDICINE, GENERAL & INTERNAL

Deutsches Arzteblatt international Pub Date : 2025-04-18 DOI:10.3238/arztebl.m2025.0015

Christian Schlett, Piet van der Keylen, Andrea C Schöpf-Lazzarino, Nicole Röttele, Mirjam Körner, Andy Maun, Joerg J Meerpohl, Lukas M Horstmeier, Klaus Kaier, Erik Farin-Glattacker, Sebastian Voigt-Radloff

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Background: It is important for patients with back pain to be well-informed. The well-informed patient is better prepared for selfmanagement and for joint decision-making with the physician. This is why we developed tala-med, a web portal providing up-to-date, evidence-based, independent information on back pain. Primary care physicians can use it in their practices and make it accessible to their patients.

Methods: A cluster randomized controlled trial (registration number DRKS00014279) was carried out in which the primary care physicians (PCPs) in the intervention group (IG: 33 physicians) were directed to use the tala-med web portal in their consultations with patients who had back pain (180 patients). The PCPs in the control group (CG: 12 physicians) were not given access to talamed and treated their patients with back pain (136 patients) as they had done before. The patients' informedness about back pain was the primary endpoint: it was assessed by the patients themselves in terms of their subjective degree of knowledge and subjective state of informedness about back pain. Pain intensity, the second endpoint, was assessed with a visual analog scale.

Results: Intention-to-treat analyses revealed that the patients' subjective degree of knowledge about back pain increased to a greater extent in the intervention group than in the control group (B = 0.25, 95% confidence interval [0.07; 0.43]), as did their subjective state of informedness about back pain (B = 0.51 [0.13; 0.89]). Patients in the intervention group also reported a larger reduction of pain intensity compared to patients in the control group (B = -10.46 [-18.52; -2.38]).

Conclusion: Use of the tala-med web portal by primary care physicians and their patients made patients better informed about back pain and lessened the intensity of their pain. These improvements, although statistically significant, were not large enough to be clinically important.

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医生主导的背痛网站的有效性：一项随机对照试验。

背景：背痛患者必须充分了解相关信息。充分知情的患者能够更好地进行自我管理，并与医生共同做出决策。因此，我们开发了tala-med，一个提供最新的、基于证据的、独立的背痛信息的门户网站。初级保健医生可以在他们的实践中使用它，并让他们的病人也能获得这些信息：方法：我们开展了一项分组随机对照试验（注册号：DRKS00014279），指导干预组（IG：33 名医生）的初级保健医生（PCPs）在咨询背痛患者（180 名患者）时使用 tala-med 门户网站。对照组的初级保健医生（CG：12 名医生）没有获得使用 tala-med 的权限，他们像以前一样治疗背痛患者（136 名患者）。患者对背痛的知情程度是主要终点：由患者自己根据他们对背痛的主观了解程度和主观知情状态进行评估。疼痛强度是第二个终点，采用视觉模拟量表进行评估：意向治疗分析显示，干预组患者对背痛的主观认识程度比对照组有更大程度的提高（B = 0.25，95% 置信区间 [0.07; 0.43]），他们对背痛的主观知情程度也有更大程度的提高（B = 0.51 [0.13; 0.89]）。与对照组相比，干预组患者报告的疼痛强度降低幅度也更大（B = -10.46 [-18.52; -2.38]）：结论：初级保健医生及其患者使用 tala-med 门户网站能让患者更好地了解背部疼痛并减轻疼痛强度。这些改善虽然在统计学上有显著意义，但还不够大，在临床上并不重要。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Deutsches Arzteblatt international 医学-医学：内科

CiteScore

4.10

自引率

5.20%

发文量

306

审稿时长

4-8 weeks

期刊介绍： Deutsches Ärzteblatt International is a bilingual (German and English) weekly online journal that focuses on clinical medicine and public health. It serves as the official publication for both the German Medical Association and the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians. The journal is dedicated to publishing independent, peer-reviewed articles that cover a wide range of clinical medicine disciplines. It also features editorials and a dedicated section for scientific discussion, known as correspondence. The journal aims to provide valuable medical information to its international readership and offers insights into the German medical landscape. Since its launch in January 2008, Deutsches Ärzteblatt International has been recognized and included in several prestigious databases, which helps to ensure its content is accessible and credible to the global medical community. These databases include: Carelit CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature) Compendex DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) EMBASE (Excerpta Medica database) EMNursing GEOBASE (Geoscience & Environmental Data) HINARI (Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative) Index Copernicus Medline (MEDLARS Online) Medpilot PsycINFO (Psychological Information Database) Science Citation Index Expanded Scopus By being indexed in these databases, Deutsches Ärzteblatt International's articles are made available to researchers, clinicians, and healthcare professionals worldwide, contributing to the global exchange of medical knowledge and research.