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Population/Illness
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Adult (≥ 18 years) with chronic low back pain (≥ 12 weeks)
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Non-human subjects; human objects (e.g., tissues, fMRI, MRI, CT etc.), children and adolescents (< 18 years old); fictitious/actor patients, patients with acute, sub-acute or mixed samples of low back pain
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Treatment Setting
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Universally accepted/clinically recognised forms of conservative care (i.e., non-pharmacological and non-invasive) occurring in a clinical setting (in-patient or out-patient), primary or secondary healthcare (private or public) or where it was expressly articulated that the site involves regular delivery of therapeutic care (e.g., University clinic, community care centre)
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Excluded if treatment related to palliative care, emergency medicine or experimental laboratory environments
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Intervention
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Conservative care approaches/strategies which potentially alter clinical outcomes through the explicit modulation or measurement of at least one of the five contextual factors relating to the health encounter
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Excluding pharmacological or surgical interventions; acupuncture, injections, or invasive procedures; neurological experiments or imaging; interventions targeting adherence to analgesic medication, diet modification/nutritional supplements; interventions involving alternative medicine; online, app-based or telehealth interventions
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Comparators
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No treatment or intervention (e.g., waiting-list control or natural history group), no control group (i.e., uncontrolled study), standard/usual care, or neutral, negative, or an experimentally dosed and/or opposite or contextually comparative condition
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Two-armed trial or two-group design whereby the description indicates a standard placebo-controlled trial (where the comparison group involved a “sham” condition perceived to be an “inert” placebo)
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Outcomes
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Validated pain or physical functioning/disability measures (e.g., used during routine clinical care)
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Non-validated pain or physical functioning/disability measures or sub-scales
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Study Design
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Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs); quasi-experimental designs, or prospective longitudinal studies
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Retrospective/secondary analyses, qualitative studies, cross-sectional designs, n-of-1 trial; conference abstracts, dissertations, and trial protocols
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