Spinal Pain Patients' Beliefs about Pain and Physiotherapy

Abstract

The lay public's medical knowledge is acquired from three sources: the lay consultation and referral service, the media, and the practitioner. Satisfaction with and continued utilization of a health care service may depend on congruence between patients' beliefs about the cause of illness and practitioners' conditions of care. The results of a recent survey indicate that the information to which patients with spinal pain had access, was inadequate for them to acquire accurate knowledge of the basis for their pain and physiotherapists' conditions of care. It is suggested that more accurate information on the mechanisms of spinal pain, volunteered by physiotherapists during the encounter, would be in the interests of the lay public and the physiotherapy profession.