A Consensus Approach Toward the Standardization of Back Pain Definitions for Use in Prevalence Studies
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In Brief Study Design. A modified Delphi study conducted with 28 experts in back pain research from 12 countries. Objective. To identify standardized definitions of low back pain that could be consistently used by investigators in prevalence studies to provide comparable data. Summary of Background Data. Differences in the definition of back pain prevalence in population studies lead to heterogeneity in study findings, and limitations or impossibilities in comparing or summarizing prevalence figures from different studies. Methods. Back pain definitions were identified from 51 articles reporting population-based prevalence studies, and dissected into 77 items documenting 7 elements. These items were submitted to a panel of experts for rating and reduction, in 3 rounds (participation: 76%). Preliminary results were presented and discussed during the Amsterdam Forum VIII for Primary Care Research on Low Back Pain, compared with scientific evidence and confirmed and fine-tuned by the panel in a fourth round and the preparation of the current article. Results. Two definitions were agreed on a minimal definition (with 1 question covering site of low back pain, symptoms observed, and time frame of the measure, and a second question on severity of low back pain) and an optimal definition that is made from the minimal definition and add-ons (covering frequency and duration of symptoms, an additional measure of severity, sciatica, and exclusions) that can be adapted to different needs. Conclusion. These definitions provide standards that may improve future comparisons of low back pain prevalence figures by person, place and time characteristics, and offer opportunities for statistical summaries. A modified Delphi study was conducted with 28 experts to identify standardized definitions of low back pain prevalence for use in epidemiological studies. Two definitions were agreed on minimal and optimal. These definitions provide standards that may improve the validity of future comparisons of low back pain prevalence figures and facilitate statistical summaries.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.604 | 0.457 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.013 | 0.009 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.008 | 0.018 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.013 | 0.011 |
| Open science | 0.008 | 0.026 |
| Research integrity | 0.006 | 0.010 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.002 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; the direct Gemma label and the distilled Codex classifier agree on what is shown here.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".