Table 2.

Comparison of research priorities from Australian guidelines to those of primary care practitioners.

Research Agenda from the NH&MRC Acute Low Back Pain Guidelines:	Primary care priority number
Optimising the uptake of evidence-based guidelines by clinicians and consumers.
International standardisation of definitions of intervention strategies and consistent outcome measures
Intervention studies addressing clinical and psychosocial predictors	9
Further research into secondary prevention of low back pain	6
Evaluation of temperature treatments, ice, heat
Evaluation of topical NSAIDs
Evaluation of cox-2 NSAIDs, traditional NSAIDs, paracetamol and opioid analgesics
Evaluation of McKenzie therapy and other specific physical regimens	2, 3
Evaluation of multi-disciplinary treatment (e.g. non-occupational settings, programmatic approaches to delivering multidisciplinary care)
Evaluation of counseling and cognitive behavioural therapy
Evaluation of spinal manipulation (with and without prior x-ray)	5
Evaluation of massage
Evaluation of TENS in patients not responding to early advice to resume normal activities
Evaluation of optimum combinations of therapies