Choudhry NK, Fifer S, Fontanet CP, Archer KR, Sears E, Bhatkhande G, Haff N, Ghazinouri R, Coronado RA, Schneider BJ, Butterworth SW, Deogun H, Cooper A, Hsu E, Block S, Davidson CA, Shackelford CE, Goyal P, Milstein A, Crum K, Scott J, Marton K, Silva FM, Obeidalla S, Robinette PE, Lorenzana-DeWitt M, Bair CA, Sadun HJ, Goldfield N, Hogewood LM, Sterling EK, Pickney C, Koltun-Baker EJ, Swehla A, Ravikumar V, Malhotra S, Finney ST, Holliday L, Moolman KC, Coleman-Dockery S, Patel IB, Angel FB, Green JK, Mitchell K, McBean MR, Ghaffar M, Ermini SR, Carr AL, and MacDonald J
Importance: Low back and neck pain are often self-limited, but health care spending remains high., Objective: To evaluate the effects of 2 interventions that emphasize noninvasive care for spine pain., Design, Setting, and Participants: Pragmatic, cluster, randomized clinical trial conducted at 33 centers in the US that enrolled 2971 participants with neck or back pain of 3 months' duration or less (enrollment, June 2017 to March 2020; final follow-up, March 2021)., Interventions: Participants were randomized at the clinic-level to (1) usual care (n = 992); (2) a risk-stratified, multidisciplinary intervention (the identify, coordinate, and enhance [ICE] care model that combines physical therapy, health coach counseling, and consultation from a specialist in pain medicine or rehabilitation) (n = 829); or (3) individualized postural therapy (IPT), a postural therapy approach that combines physical therapy with building self-efficacy and self-management (n = 1150)., Main Outcomes and Measures: The primary outcomes were change in Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) score at 3 months (range, 0 [best] to 100 [worst]; minimal clinically important difference, 6) and spine-related health care spending at 1 year. A 2-sided significance threshold of .025 was used to define statistical significance., Results: Among 2971 participants randomized (mean age, 51.7 years; 1792 women [60.3%]), 2733 (92%) finished the trial. Between baseline and 3-month follow-up, mean ODI scores changed from 31.2 to 15.4 for ICE, from 29.3 to 15.4 for IPT, and from 28.9 to 19.5 for usual care. At 3-month follow-up, absolute differences compared with usual care were -5.8 (95% CI, -7.7 to -3.9; P < .001) for ICE and -4.3 (95% CI, -5.9 to -2.6; P < .001) for IPT. Mean 12-month spending was $1448, $2528, and $1587 in the ICE, IPT, and usual care groups, respectively. Differences in spending compared with usual care were -$139 (risk ratio, 0.93 [95% CI, 0.87 to 0.997]; P = .04) for ICE and $941 (risk ratio, 1.40 [95% CI, 1.35 to 1.45]; P < .001) for IPT., Conclusions and Relevance: Among patients with acute or subacute spine pain, a multidisciplinary biopsychosocial intervention or an individualized postural therapy intervention, each compared with usual care, resulted in small but statistically significant reductions in pain-related disability at 3 months. However, compared with usual care, the biopsychosocial intervention resulted in no significant difference in spine-related health care spending and the postural therapy intervention resulted in significantly greater spine-related health care spending at 1 year., Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03083886.