Ability of Therapists Trained in Mechanical Diagnosis and Therapy to Guess Pain Catastrophizing and Kinesiophobia Scores for Patients with Low Back Pain

Objective: To investigate whether a physical therapist trained through the Mechanical Diagnosis and Therapy (MDT) diploma program could guess psychological Patient Reported Outcome Measure (PROM) scores of individuals with low back pain (LBP) by taking patient history and completing a physical evaluation. Methods: Ten participants with LBP completed PROMs immediately before history taking and again after a physical evaluation. PROMs included the Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS), Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia (TSK), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, and Pain Coping Strategy Questionnaire. A physical therapist who completed the MDT diploma program took the patients’ history and completed their physical evaluation. The therapist completed the same PROMs immediately after both history taking and physical evaluation. Correlations between patient and therapist scores were calculated using Spearman’s ρ. Results: Statistically significant positive correlations were detected in the PCS (ρ = 0.65) and TSK (ρ = 0.78) before history taking, and in the PCS (ρ = 0.81) and TSK (ρ = 0.74) after physical evaluation. Discussion: The results are based on one MDT therapist and generalizability of the findings is limited. However, the current preliminary findings justify the need for further studies to explore effective post-graduate training to promote a patient centered approach.