Acupuncture in back pain – higher expectations lead to greater success

People with back pain who have positive expectations of acupuncture before they start a course of treatment experience more benefit than people who don’t believe it will work, according to new research published in The Journal of Clinical Pain.
A total of 485 people who were being treated by acupuncturists completed questionnaires before they started treatment, then two weeks, three months and six months later. The questionnaires measured back-related disability, psychological factors and clinical and demographic characteristics.
“The analysis showed that psychological factors were consistently associated with back-related disability,” explains Dr Felicity Bishop, who led the work. “People who started out with very low expectations of acupuncture – who thought it probably would not help them – were more likely to report less benefit as treatment went on.
“When individual patients came to see their back pain more positively they went on to experience less back-related disability. In particular, they experienced less disability over the course of treatment when they came to see their back pain as more controllable, when they felt they had better understanding of their back pain, when they felt better able to cope with it, were less emotional about it, and when they felt their back pain was going to have less of an impact on their lives.”
So to improve the effectiveness of treatment, acupuncturists should consider helping people to think more positively about their back pain as part of their consultations.

Subscribe to Arthritis Digest, the UK’s fastest growing arthritis magazine for all the latest arthritis news, reviews and celebrity interviews. You’ll know what your doctor is talking about, what new drugs are in the pipeline and be up to date on helpful products. Hard copy and digital versions both available. Click here for more information.

Click here to read the original research.

Image credit: Acid Pix