The Role of Pain Duration and Pain Intensity on the Effectiveness of App-Delivered Self-Management for Low Back Pain (selfBACK): Secondary Analysis of a Randomized Controlled Trial

BACKGROUND: Clinical guidelines for nonspecific low back pain (LBP) recommend self-management tailored to individual needs and capabilities as a first-line treatment. Mobile health solutions are a promising method for delivering tailored self-management interventions to patients with nonspecific LBP. However, it is not clear if the effectiveness of such self-management interventions depends on patients’ initial pain characteristics. High pain intensity and long-term symptoms of LBP have been associated with an unfavorable prognosis, and current best evidence indicates that long-term LBP (lasting more than 3 months) requires a more extensive treatment approach compared to more acute LBP. The artificial intelligence–based selfBACK app supports tailored and evidence-based self-management of nonspecific LBP. In a recent randomized controlled trial, we showed that individuals who received the selfBACK app in addition to usual care had lower LBP-related disability at the 3-month follow-up compared to those who received usual care only. This effect was sustained at 6 and 9 months. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to explore if the baseline duration and intensity of LBP influence the effectiveness of the selfBACK intervention in a secondary analysis of the selfBACK randomized controlled trial. METHODS: In the selfBACK trial, 461 adults (18 years or older) who sought care for nonspecific LBP in primary care or at an outpatient spine clinic were randomized to receive the selfBACK intervention adjunct to usual care (n=232) or usual care alone (n=229). In this secondary analysis, the participants were stratified according to the duration of the current LBP episode at baseline (≤12 weeks vs >12 weeks) or baseline LBP intensity (≤5 points vs >5 points) measured by a 0-10 numeric rating scale. The outcomes were LBP-related disability measured by the Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire (0- to 24-point scale), average LBP intensity, pain self-efficacy, and global perceived effect. To assess whether the duration and intensity of LBP influenced the effect of selfBACK, we estimated the difference in treatment effect between the strata at the 3- and 9-month follow-ups with a 95% CI. RESULTS: Overall, there was no difference in effect for patients with different durations or intensities of LBP at either the 3- or 9-month follow-ups. However, there was suggestive evidence that the effect of the selfBACK intervention on LBP-related disability at the 3-month follow-up was largely confined to people with the highest versus the lowest LBP intensity (mean difference between the intervention and control group −1.8, 95% CI −3.0 to −0.7 vs 0.2, 95% CI −1.1 to 0.7), but this was not sustained at the 9-month follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that the intensity and duration of LBP have negligible influence on the effectiveness of the selfBACK intervention on LBP-related disability, average LBP intensity, pain self-efficacy, and global perceived effect. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NTC03798288; https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT03798288 INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): RR2-10.2196/14720