Research designs and instruments to detect physiotherapy overuse of low-value care services in low back pain management: a scoping review

BACKGROUND: The provision of low-value physiotherapy services in low back pain management is a known but complex phenomenon. Thus, this scoping review aims to systematically map existing research designs and instruments of the field in order to discuss the current state of research methodologies and contextualize results to domains and perspectives of a referred low-value care typology. Ultimately, results will be illustrated and transferred to conditions of the German health care setting as care delivery conditions of physiotherapy in Germany face unique particularities. METHODS: The development of this review is guided by the analysis framework of Arksey and O'Malley. A two-stage, audited search strategy was performed in Medline (PubMed), Web of Science, and google scholar. All types of observational studies were included. Identified articles needed to address a pre-determined population, concept, and context framework and had to be published in English or German language. The publication date of included articles was not subject to any limitation. The applied framework to assess the phenomenon of low-value physiotherapy services incorporated three domains (care effectiveness; care efficiency; patient alignment of care) and perspectives (provider; patient; society) of care. RESULTS: Thirty-three articles met the inclusion criteria. Seventy-nine percent of articles focused on the appropriateness of physiotherapeutic treatments, followed by education and information (30%), the diagnostic process (15%), and goal-setting practice (12%). Study designs were predominantly cross-sectional (58%). Data sources were mainly survey instruments (67%) of which 50% were self-developed. Most studies addressed the effectiveness domain of care (73%) and the provider perspective (88%). The perspective of patient alignment was assessed by 6% of included articles. None of included articles assessed the society perspective. Four methodical approaches of included articles were rated to be transferrable to Germany. CONCLUSION: Identified research on low-value physiotherapy care in low back pain management was widely unidimensional. Most articles focused on the effectiveness domain of care and investigated the provider perspective. Most measures were indirectly and did not monitor low-value care trends over a set period of time. Research on low-value physiotherapy care in secondary care conditions, such as Germany, was scarce. REGISTRATION: This review has been registered on open science framework (https://osf.io/vzq7khttps://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/PMF2G). SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12913-023-09166-4.