Replies to a questionnaire showed that, amongst 180 women delivered in The London Hospital, 48% experienced backache during pregnancy; in one third of these it was severe. The prevalence of back pain increased with both increasing age and increasing parity, and it was difficult to separate the relative contributions of these two factors. No evidence was found of an association between backache during pregnancy and height, weight, 'obesity index', weight gain, or baby's weight. Analysis of aggravating and relieving factors indicates some differences between backache in the pregnant and 'mechanical' back pain in the non-pregnant. Slightly less backache was reported amongst patients attending antenatal physiotherapy classes but the figures do not provide clear evidence of any protective effect of this attendance.

Back care advice similar to that used in "low back pain schools' was made available to a group of primiparous women as early in their pregnancy as possible. Subsequently it was shown that they experienced significantly less "troublesome' and "severe' backache (P = less than 0.01) than a control group for whom such advice was not available.

This study examined the patient perspective of surgical success through the measurement of health-related quality of life (HRQOL), in order to identify the patient characteristics and process issues associated with postoperative changes in health status. Patients completed the RAND 36-item Health Survey 1.0 (SF-36) prior to surgery and at 6 months following surgery. Baseline patient demographic and clinical information were collected from the medical record and were used to develop models of change in HRQOL for 68 patients. While many patients improved, a number experienced no change or even a decline in HRQOL in the postoperative period. Factors associated with change in HRQOL are presented. The findings suggest that factors associated with change in health status can be systematically assessed, which may lead to the development of interventions aimed at those patient characteristics or process issues that impact on HRQOL.