Optimising outcome

Study design

Optimising outcome prediction in primary care: using longitudunal data in prognosis research:

Analysis of individual patient data from four primary care based prospective cohort studies in patients with back or shoulder pain

Primary objective

To investigate to what extent a repeated assessment of a simple prognostic indicator can improve long-term outcome prediction.

Using the example of back and shoulder pain:

1. to assess whether the repeated assessments of a simple measure of pain or function can improve the performance of prognostic prediction models in primary care
2. to test a strategy for accurately and efficiently classifying patients as being at high/low probability of recovery, using baseline prognostic information combined with a short-term repeated assessment of pain.