Baseline characteristics of Veterans from improving Veteran access to integrated management of back pain (AIM-Back) - an embedded pragmatic, cluster-randomized trial in the United States.

OBJECTIVE

Describe baseline characteristics and representativeness of AIM-Back trial participants relative to Veterans with low back pain at participating clinics.

METHODS

Veterans were referred to AIM-Back randomized care pathways and included 1) enrolled participants with data collected in the Electronic Health Record (EHR) by clinical staff with no consent required and 2) survey participants who provided informed consent with data collected via surveys by research staff. Descriptive statistics were reported. Participation to prevalence ratios (PPRs) were calculated for sex, age, race, and ethnicity by clinic to describe representativeness.

RESULTS

Across 17 primary care clinics, the Referral cohort included 2767 unique Veterans with n = 1817 enrolled (attended initial evaluation visit), n = 996 were survey participants; n = 799 of enrolled participants (44%) were also survey participants. More than 59% of Veterans of enrolled and survey participants had High Impact Chronic Pain and approximately 10% of enrolled participants had documented opioid use in the preceding year. Older Veterans (≥65 years) were underrepresented in the Referral cohort compared to those with LBP visits at clinics (PPRs < 0.8).

CONCLUSIONS

These findings provide detailed insights for participants that will be included in future analyses of care pathway effectiveness.

TRIAL REGISTRATION: NCT04411420.