Back Musculoskeletal Disorders clinical trials

Qualitative Analysis of Physiotherapy Prescriptions From Primary Physicians for Patients With Back Musculoskeletal Disorders

"Prescription in France is a major act of medical activity and must be in accordance with the scientific evidence. The use of physiotherapy by primary physicians is becoming more and more frequent and involves the performance of a prescription given to the patients so that they can access to their care. The optimization of the use of this treatment is based on the respect of several legal and regulatory provisions allowing physiotherapists (PT) to offer the most appropriate treatment to the patient. Although these professionals can carry out a physiotherapy diagnosis and the objectives of care, as well as the choice of the acts and the techniques which seem to them the most appropriate. The performance of their treatment remains conditioned by the indication to physiotherapy and the anatomical region formulated by the prescription of the primary physicians. Primary physicians don't have the right to include their diagnostic hypothesis on the physiotherapy prescription. Therefore, they could transmit to the PT a supplementary report including all useful information for the PT which could influence the progress of the treatment. It has been reported a frequent absence of diagnostic hypothesis formulated by the primary physicians to the PT to justify the indication to these treatment with the prescription. However, PT are led to formulate one or more diagnostic hypothesis following their clinical assessment. This can lead to questioning the interest of prescription for referring the patient from the primary physician to the PT. The qualitative study by Panchout et al shows that 97.8% of the french private physiotherapists included treat patients with musculoskeletal disorders and 95.5% received those with back disorders. Back musculoskeletal disorders are the most common conditions reported from french private PT. No French study has yet analyzed the quality of prescriptions formulated by primary physicians for private physiotherapists. Much foreign health systems have a different model of access to physiotherapy services compared to the French system, involving direct access physiotherapy for patients with musculoskeletal disorders. This care pathway gives patients the ability to refer themselves directly to a PT without having to see another health professional. Patients do not need a prescription in this model of access to physiotherapy care to use it. Thus, in order to optimize the relevance of the use of physiotherapy for patients with back musculoskeletal disorders, we propose a prospective and cross-sectional observational study of 60 physiotherapists. The first aim of this study is to assess the relevance of the physiotherapy indication from primary care physicians for patients with back musculoskeletal disorders and consulting physiotherapists.