Dr. Wendy Scholten-Peeters and dr. Hanneke van Dongen have, together with colleagues from the Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences and Health Sciences (VU Amsterdam), received a grant of €513.000 for a multicenter cost-effectiveness trial.
Lifestyle factors, such as physical inactivity, an unhealthy diet, and overweight contribute to the burden of low back pain, the demand for medical care, and absenteeism. For these patients, it seems important to improve lifestyle and subsequent functioning and quality of life. Therefore, this project will assess whether a combined lifestyle intervention, integrated into specific low back pain care delivered by physio/exercise therapists will be effective and cost-effective over 3 years compared to usual care in overweight patients with persistent low back pain who are referred back from the hospital to primary care. A multicenter randomized clinical trial with effectiveness-, process and economic evaluations in overweight patients with persistent nonspecific low back pain who are referred from the hospital back to primary care will be performed.