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BACKGROUND CONTEXT: The North American Spine Society's (NASS) Evidence Based Clinical Guideline for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Low Back Pain features evidence-based recommendations for diagnosing and treating adult patients with nonspecific low back pain. The guideline is intended to reflect contemporary treatment concepts for nonspecific low back pain as reflected in the highest quality clinical literature available on this subject as of February 2016. PURPOSE: The purpose of the guideline is to provide an evidence-based educational tool to assist spine specialists when making clinical decisions for adult patients with nonspecific low back pain. This article provides a brief summary of the evidence-based guideline recommendations for diagnosing and treating patients with this condition. STUDY DESIGN: This is a guideline summary review. METHODS: This guideline is the product of the Low Back Pain Work Group of NASS' Evidence-Based Clinical Guideline Development Committee. The methods used to develop this guideline are detailed in the complete guideline and technical report available on the NASS website. In brief, a multidisciplinary work group of spine care specialists convened to identify clinical questions to address in the guideline. The literature search strategy was developed in consultation with medical librarians. Upon completion of the systematic literature search, evidence relevant to the clinical questions posed in the guideline was reviewed. Work group members utilized NASS evidentiary table templates to summarize study conclusions, identify study strengths and weaknesses, and assign levels of evidence. Work group members participated in webcasts and in-person rate expert opinion when necessary. The draft guideline was submitted to an internal and external peer review process and ultimately approved by the NASS Board of Directors. RESULTS: Eighty-two clinical questions were addressed, and the answers are summarized in this article. The respective recommendations were graded according to the levels of evidence of the supporting literature. CONCLUSIONS: The evidence-based clinical guideline has been created using techniques of evidence-based medicine and best available evidence to aid practitioners in the diagnosis and treatment of adult patients with nonspecific low back pain. The entire guideline document, including the evidentiary tables, literature search parameters, literature attrition flowchart, suggestions for future research, and all of the references,

(1) Adverse effects should be routinely reported. For the few studies that did report, adverse effects of spinal manipulation for all ages and conditions were rare, transient, and not severe. (2) Evidence from controlled studies and usual practice supports chiropractic care (the entire clinical encounter) as providing benefit to patients with asthma, cervicogenic vertigo, and infantile colic. Evidence was promising for potential benefit of manual procedures for children with otitis media and elderly patients with pneumonia. (3) The RCT design is not necessarily incompatible with WSR. RCTs could improve generalizability by basing protocols on usual practice. (4) Case reports could contribute more to WSR by increasing their emphasis on patient characteristics and patient-based outcomes. (5) Chiropractic investigators, practitioners, and funding agencies should increase their attention to observational designs.