Predicting chronic low-back pain based on pain trajectories in patients in an occupational setting: an exploratory analysis

Abstract

In an occupational setting, different subpopulations of chronic LBP patients could be identified using LCGA. The prediction model based on these subpopulations showed a promising predictive performance.

Defining pain and interference recovery trajectories after acute non-catastrophic musculoskeletal trauma through growth mixture modeling

“…In contrast, our model has identified a 'Delayed Recovery' group that entered the study with high functional interference not different from the Minimal or No Recovery class but had recovered by the final 12-month follow-up. Our model is more similar to that of Panken and colleagues [16] who also identified a 'Delayed Recovery' class in a sample of adults with low back pain, though the outcome was pain severity rather than functional interference. The middle trajectory casts some doubt on previous findings, including our own prior meta-analysis [40], suggesting that those likely to develop chronic problems can be reliably identified with higher baseline interference or pain scores.…”

“…Traditionally, pain intensity (or severity) has been the most common outcome predicted in prognostic MSK trauma research, and acute pain intensity has been a consistent predictor of those outcomes [14,15]. For example, Panken and colleagues [16] conducted growth mixture modeling (GMM) to identify 3 trajectories that best described the trajectory of pain intensity in 622 participants with low back pain of median 5.8 weeks duration (2 to 780 weeks). Their results showed three distinct categories of recovery wherein people either had consistently low pain, consistently high pain, or showed a gradual recovery over a period of 12 months.…”

Time course of neck-shoulder pain among workers: A longitudinal latent class growth analysis

“…LCGA has been used in several studies to identify trajectories of low-back pain (19)(20)(21), widespread pain (22) as well as disability (23) and sick-leave (24) due to pain in the arm, neck and shoulders. Lövgren et al (17) used LCGA to determine trajectories of NSP among nursing students based on yearly measurements before and after graduation identifying six trajectories ranging from asymptomatic (43%) to chronic NSP (14%).…”

Defining pain and interference recovery trajectories after acute non-catastrophic musculoskeletal trauma through Growth Mixture Modeling 

“…LGCA standards. Some research groups have identi ed smaller trajectory classes hidden within larger samples (though these tend to represent 10% or less of the overall proportion), while other large scale analyses have similarly reported three trajectories (16,44). While it is possible that other trajectories comprised of smaller proportions exist in our data but were not identi ed, we propose that these would be rare enough to not substantively affect prognosis or treatment decisions.…”