Working Well With Back Pain (Feasibility RCT of Vocational Rehabilitation)

Back pain has a major impact on people's ability to work. Health professionals need to know how they can best use their limited resources to address the occupational needs of people with chronic low back pain. Vocational rehabilitation is the process that helps people with health problems to stay at, return to and remain at work. This study comprises the second phase of a three year study of back pain and vocational rehabilitation. The first phase gathered data from patient interviews and postal surveys of GPs and GP practice managers. These findings have been used to inform this second phase; a feasibility randomised controlled trial. The participants will be thirty employed people with back pain who have been offered an NHS rehabilitation programme, and who are concerned about their ability to work with low back pain. Those who consent will be randomised into two groups. One group will receive routine rehabilitation. The other will receive routine rehabilitation plus an individually tailored vocational intervention carried out by the researcher. Following the trial, individual interviews will be carried out with each of the participants by an independent researcher. An economic study will evaluate the possibility of measuring the cost-effectiveness of the intervention. The hypothesis is that an enhanced vocational intervention plus routine rehabilitation will be more effective in improving patients' work ability than routine rehabilitation alone.