Prevalence, practice patterns and evidence for chronic neck pain
From: Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken). 2010 Jun 2. [Epub ahead of print]
The primary objectives of this study were to estimate the prevalence of chronic neck pain in North Carolina, to describe health care use (providers, treatments and diagnostic testing) for chronic neck pain and to correlate health care use with current best evidence. A cross-sectional, telephone survey of a representative sample of North Carolina households in 2006. Five thousand three hundred fifty seven households were contacted in 2006 to identify 141 non-institutionalized adults 21 years and older with chronic neck pain and no chronic low back pain. Subjects were interviewed about their health and health care use (i.e., provider, tests, and treatments). Patterns of health care use were compared to current systematic reviews.
The estimated prevalence of chronic neck pain in 2006 among non-institutionalized individuals for the state of North Carolina was 2.2%. Individuals with chronic neck pain were middle – aged (mean age 48.9 years and a majority were female (56%) and non-Hispanic White (81%). Subjects saw a mean of 5.21 provider types and had a mean of 21 visits. The types of treatments subjects reported varied with treatments such as electrotherapy stimulation (30.3%), corsets or braces (20.9%), massage (28.1%), ultrasound (27.3%), heat (57.0%) and cold (47.4%) having unclear or little benefit based on current best available reviews. Based on current evidence for best practice, the findings indicate over utilization of diagnostic testing, narcotics and modalities, and the under utilization of effective treatments such as therapeutic neck exercises.
