title: Hospital referrals for low back pain: more coherence needed.
abstract: Low back pain is a common reason for hospital referral but little is known of the resulting workload in different specialties. All new outpatient attendances for conditions with low back pain were recorded over one month in a teaching hospital and a district general hospital. The patients were seen in at least ten specialties and two-fifths of them had been seen previously with the same symptom in another department. In the two hospitals, low back pain accounted for 15% and 12% of all new outpatient attendances. A more coherent referral policy is needed.
authors.affiliation: ARC Epidemiology Research Unit, School of Epidemiology and Health Sciences, University of Manchester, UK. Alan.Silman@.man.ac.uk
authors.forename: A J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Silman
authors.forename: M I
authors.initials: MI
authors.lastname: Jayson
authors.forename: A C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Papageorgiou
authors.forename: P R
authors.initials: PR
authors.lastname: Croft
mesh_terms: D006753:Hospital Records; D006769:Hospitals, General / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006784:Hospitals, Teaching / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D017116:Low Back Pain / Q000453:epidemiology*; D010045:Outpatients / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012017:Referral and Consultation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*