Health care contact following a new incident neck or low back pain episode in the general population; the HUNT study

Table 2 Pain- and health related factors at baseline in three groups of persons with different health care seeking behaviors. All numbers are given in percentage of the group population without missing information on each factor^e

	Conventional health care^a	Alternative health care only	No health care
	n = 93	n = 18	n = 108
Baseline pain intensity;”current pain”
NRS 0-2	18	33	36
NRS = 3	26	44	23
NRS ≥ 4	56	23	41
Spinal pain location(s)
Predominantly neck pain	48	61	56
Predominantly low back pain	33	28	38
Neck pain and low back pain^b	18	11	6
Additional painsites
No additional sites	56	72	65
One additional site	18	11	25
Two or more additional sites	26	17	10
Frequency of pain episodes
Never before	14	11	18
Once a year or less	15	17	28
≥ two yearly episodes	71	67	48
Self-rated general health poor	27	6	6
Medical condition(s)^c	27	33	24
Musculoskeletal condition(s)^c	18	17	11
Depressive symptoms (HADs ≥ 8)	15	0	4
Anxiety symptoms (HADs ≥ 8)	24	0	9
Insomnia	10	0	5
Loneliness^d	24	0	11
Daily smoking	28	17	13
Body Mass Index < 25 (normal)	28	22	41
BMI ≥ 25 and < 30 (overweight)	44	61	45
BMI ≥ 30 (obese)	27	17	13

^agroup includes those who consulted both conventional and alternative health care
^begually intense pain in both areas
^cone or more reported diagnoses
^dreported loneliness: a little/a good amount/very much
^emissing values (n): frequency (9), self-rated health (1), depressive/anxiety symptoms (38), insomnia (38), loneliness (3), BMI (2)

ISSN: 1472-6963