Knowledge and management of low back pain as running-related injuries among Italian physical therapists: findings from a national survey

ABSTRACT

Objectives

To investigate the beliefs, knowledge, attitudes, behavior, and the clinical management procedures of the Italian physical therapists specialized in orthopedic manipulative physical therapy (OMPT) toward running and its correlation with low back pain (LBP).

Design: A cross-sectional online survey was conducted in 2019, according to the Checklist for Reporting Results of Internet E‐Surveys (CHERRIES) and Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) guidelines.

Setting: Italy.

Participants: One thousand two hundred and eighteen Italian OMPTs.

Methods

Survey Monkey software was used to administer the survey. The questionnaire was self-reported and included 26 questions. Descriptive statistics were used and related to the effective respondents for each question.

Results

One thousand two hundred and eighteen questionnaires (60.9%) were included in the analysis. A considerable cohort of OMPTs working in private practice clinical settings (n = 845; 69.4%; 95% CI 66.7–71.9) has indicated running not to be a relevant risk factor for the onset of LBP (n = 806; 66.2%; 95% CI 63.4–68.8). Moreover, most of the participants (n = 679; 55.7%; 95% CI 52.9–58.5) adopted a combination of manual therapy techniques and therapeutic exercise for the management of runners with LBP.

Conclusions

Widespread knowledge of clinical and theoretical management of LBP in runners-patients has emerged among Italian OMPTs. The OMPTs’ academic background agrees with the recent literature and therefore highlights the paucity of studies related to LBP as running-related injuries.

KEYWORDS:

• Athletic injuries
• disease management
• knowledge
• low back pain
• prevalence
• running

Acknowledgments

This work was developed within the framework of the DINOGMI Department of Excellence of MIUR 2018-2022 (Legge 232 del 2016).

Declaration of interest

The authors affirm that they have no financial affiliation (including research funding) or involvement with any commercial organization that has direct financial interest in any matter included in this manuscript.

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The Liguria Clinical Experimental Ethics Committee (357REG2017, accepted on 21/01/2019) approved the present study.

Availability of data and materials

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article. Other information of this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This research received no external funding.