This research project was developed in response to our team’s prior research which highlighted gaps in accessing primary and rehabilitation care for chronic low back pain in Saskatchewan. We know that back pain is the leading cause of disability worldwide, and one in five Canadian adults experience chronic back pain. Improving access to non-medical treatment options is an especially important public health issue in Canada in the midst of the current opioid crisis. People with back pain face barriers accessing non-medical services, such as physiotherapy, which may not be publicly funded. Potential barriers include location of available services, costs, and wait times. In addition, people living in rural and remote areas and Indigenous people are more likely to experience back pain and little is known about barriers and facilitators to health care access among rural, remote and Indigenous people with back pain compared to urban and/or non-Indigenous people. With approximately 30% of Saskatchewan’s population living in rural and remote settings and 16% of the province’s population being Indigenous, this is a critical gap to address.

This project will explore and apply the experiences of rural, remote and urban Indigenous and non-Indigenous people with chronic back pain to develop a deeper understanding of health care access barriers and facilitators across rural, remote, and urban communities.  We will also explore the experiences of healthcare providers serving people with chronic back pain in these various locations across Saskatchewan. This project will also evaluate data available through administrative platforms to determine current patterns of care for people accessing services in Saskatchewan, and will investigate which indicators of access and effectiveness of health care for back pain are most meaningful to these patients. This information will inform the development of comprehensive measures that will be sensitive to geographical location and relevant to culturally diverse patients with chronic back pain. These measures can be used in future studies to evaluate community-based chronic back pain interventions and cross provincial/ national comparisons, ultimately leading to enhanced access to more patient-centred care for chronic back pain. We plan to share our findings with policy and decision makers, with the hope of improving access to healthcare services for you and other residents of Saskatchewan.

You can read more about this research, or learn how to become a participant in this research via the Musculoskeletal Health and Access to Care team website. There are opportunities for patients and healthcare providers.

For more information, contact: Dr. Brenna Bath, Principal Investigator
(306)-966-6573 |  back.research@usask.ca
https://tinyurl.com/usask-backresearch

Chronic Back Pain_recruitment poster