Table 3.

Results

At Baseline	Reference N°	Development of LBP over time				Comments
		Stable	Fluctuating	Worsening	Improving
No LBP	[8]	No LBP at BL was highly predictive of future absence of pain throughout 8 surveys over 2 years			NA
	[9]	45% with no pain at 3 surveys over 5 years			NA
	[10]	70% no pain at second survey and 57% at 3rd survey over 8 years			NA
	[11]	67% and63% respectively no pain at 2nd and 3rd survey over 28 years		64% had LBP at the 4th survey (28 years later)	NA
	[12]	NA	NA	NA	NA	Not applicable: all participants were chosen because they had LBP
	[13]	The most frequent course was no BP each year over 5 years (35%)			NA
	[14]	- 29% of the population was free of LBP at 3 surveys over 10 years		- 11% developed long standing LBP at 2nd and 3rd survey over 10 years	NA
		- 62% never had long standing LBP at 3 surveys over 10 years
	[15]	Stable (visual analysis)
Presence of LBP	[8]	Presence of LBP at BL was highly predictive of future pain throughout 8 surveys over 2 years
	[9]	If >30 days of LBP at BL: 39% in the same category after 1 and 5 years	If 1–30 days of LBP at BL: 62% fluctuated to the neighboring groups over 5 years
	[10]	38% have the same intensity of LBP at 3 surveys over 8 years	27% of LBP (intensity) fluctuated; movements between extremes groups were rare (12%) at 3 surveys over 8 years	17% of LBP (intensity) increased at 3 surveys over 8 years	19% of LBP (intensity) decreased at 3 surveys over 8 years
	[11]	75, 73 and 88% were symptomatic at 3 FUs over 28 years
		31% of the subjects reported LBP in all 4 surveys
	[12]	Stability of severity and frequency of LBP was high in 4 periods over 1 year			3% reported no pain after BL throughout the weekly surveys over one year
	[13]	The most frequent course was BP each year over 5 years (14%)
	[14]	6% had long standing LBP at 3 surveys over 10 years	11% had long standing LBP only at some surveys over 10 years		10% had recovered from long lasting low back pain at 2nd and 3rd survey
	[15]	For those who had more than 8 days of BP during that first year (visual analysis)	For those who have between 1–7 days of BP the first year of the 5-yr study period (visual analysis)

LBP: Low back pain; FU: Follow-up; BL: Baseline; NA: Not Applicable.