Clinical Course and Prognostic Factors of Older Patients With Back Pain and Radiating Leg Pain in General Practice: BACE Cohort Study.

Objective: Patients with back pain (BP) and radiating leg pain have poorer clinical outcomes compared to patients with BP alone. We aimed to describe the 1-year clinical course and to identify prognostic factors associated with non-recovery in older BP patients with radiating leg pain.

Design: Patients in the BACE cohort aged >55 years with a new episode of BP and radiating leg pain were included (n = 377). Data on clinical outcomes were collected until 1-year follow-up. Uni- and multivariable regression analyses were performed to investigate the association between potential prognostic factors and three non-recovery outcomes at the 1-year follow-up.

Results: More than half of the patients (65%) did not recover after 12 months. In multivariable analyses, poor self-rated health (odds ratio [OR] 2.34, 95% CI: 1.20-4.56) and BP duration at baseline (OR 1.48, 1.12-1.96) were significantly associated with non-recovery for BP as outcome; age (OR 1.04, 1.03-1.05), smoking (OR 1.14, 1.00-1.30), depressive symptomatology (OR 1.03, 1.02-1.04), kinesiophobia (OR 1.03, 1.02-1.04), poor self-rated health (OR 2.09, 1.83-2.39), baseline disability (OR 1.16, 1.14-1.17), BP duration (OR 1.49, 1.41-1.57), leg pain (OR 1.52, 1.37-1.68), pain during rotation (OR 1.71, 1.53-1.90) and other musculoskeletal complaints (OR 1.34, 1.17-1.52) were associated with disability. No factors were associated with leg pain.

Conclusions: Several prognostic factors were associated with non-recovery in older patients with BP and radiating leg pain. Primary care clinicians should be aware of these factors in managing these patients.