EVALUATION COMMITTEE

The Faculty Council has appointed the following adjudication committee to evaluate the thesis and the associated lecture: 

• Prof. Britt Elin Oiestad, OsloMet, Norway
• Dr. Anne Møller, Københavns Universitet, Denmark
• Dr. . Mathias Vedsø Kristiansen, HST, Aalborg University (Chairman).

Moderator: Prof.  Michael Skovdal Rathleff, Health Science and Technology, Aalborg University

HOW TO PARTICIPATE

The Ph.D. Defense is organized as a hybrid event you can participate digitally via Zoom or physical presence. 

Please click here to participate via Zoom.

Meeting ID: 697 6762 7673

Passcode: 690905

ABSTRACT

Little is known regarding care-seeking adolescents with Low Back Pain (LBP) who consult their general practitioner. The objectives of the PhD was threefold: I) investigate the 1-year prognosis among care-seeking adolescents with LBP from general practice, II) investigate when and how adolescents with LBP interact with the health care system and health care providers including which self-management strategies they use and, III) investigate the effectiveness of an intervention designed to facilitate a self-management approach among adolescents with LBP in a single subject experimental study.

Methods and materials:

The first study in this PhD thesis was a prospective cohort study in which adolescent patients were recruited when they consulted their general practitioner for LBP. The second study was a qualitative semi-structured interview study among adolescents who had consulted a health care provider for their LBP. The third and final study was design as a single subject experimental study among adolescents with LBP.

Results:

When adolescents with LBP consult their general practitioner for LBP, they experience moderate to high pain intensity, they are functionally limited, and they are worried about their pain. Even after 1-yaer, most of the adolescents continued to experience LBP at low to moderate intensity and they were still worried about their LBP. Care-seeking adolescents with LBP express a desire to self-manage their LBP but they need a guidance from a health care provider to be confident in doing so. One significant barrier is problems with communication between the adolescent patient and the health care provider. An intervention to facilitate a self-management approach among adolescents with LBP are effective in some, but in patients with a continuous high degree of LBP-related worries, the effect is diminished.