title: Volition and low back pain: When patients talk.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Our objective was to explore, describe and understand volition of chronic low back pain (LBP) patients, highlighting barriers and facilitators to practicing regular physical activity in order to develop a questionnaire assessing those volitional competencies.
  
  
  METHODS
  A content analysis of semi-structured interviews with 30 chronic LBP patients was performed. Participants were asked about their pain, motivation, physical abilities, barriers and facilitators to regular exercises and finally strategies implemented to achieve the exercise program.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Patients often reported that they were motivated and that exercises had no negative effects on LBP. Many patients recognized having difficulties performing all their exercises regularly. The main barriers were: lack of time, fatigue, lack of visible results, pain and other daily priorities. The main facilitators were: group exercise, help from the therapist, strategic planning, favorable environment, pleasure associated with exercises, fear of pain recurrence and pain itself.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Content analysis showed that sharing stories allowed patients to express their experience of LBP in their own words. It provides a solid ground to develop a questionnaire assessing volitional competencies in chronic LBP patients in order to identify patients who will not realize their exercises and help them be (more) active and avoid chronicity.
authors.affiliation: Unité de psychologie sociale, faculté de psychologie et des sciences de l'éducation, université libre de Bruxelles, CP 122, 50, avenue F.D.-Roosevelt, 1050 Bruxelles, Belgium; Service de kinésithérapie et de réadaptation fonctionnelle, hôpital Princesse-Paola, rue du Vivier, 21, 6900 Marche-en-Famenne, Belgium; Section rachis de la Société française de rhumatologie, Paris, France. Electronic address: celine.mathy@ulg.ac.be.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Mathy
authors.affiliation: Section rachis de la Société française de rhumatologie, Paris, France; Centre multidisciplinaire de la douleur, service de pharmacologie et toxicologie cliniques, service de médecine interne de réhabilitation, hôpitaux universitaires de Genève, faculté de médecine, université de Genève, Genève, Switzerland.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cedraschi
authors.affiliation: Centre de recherche en psychologie du travail et de la consommation, faculté des sciences psychologiques et de l'éducation, université libre de Bruxelles, Bruxelles, Belgium.
authors.forename: J-P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Broonen
authors.affiliation: Unité de psychologie sociale, faculté de psychologie et des sciences de l'éducation, université libre de Bruxelles, CP 122, 50, avenue F.D.-Roosevelt, 1050 Bruxelles, Belgium.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Azzi
authors.affiliation: Service de kinésithérapie et de réadaptation fonctionnelle, hôpital Princesse-Paola, rue du Vivier, 21, 6900 Marche-en-Famenne, Belgium; Section rachis de la Société française de rhumatologie, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Henrotin
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D059350:Chronic Pain / Q000628:therapy*; D005081:Exercise Therapy / Q000523:psychology*; D005221:Fatigue / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D017116:Low Back Pain / Q000628:therapy*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009042:Motivation; D020377:Self Efficacy; D013997:Time Factors; D014836:Volition; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Chronic low back pain; Content analysis; Pain; Physical exercises; Volition