Ben Darlow

Ben Darlow
University of Otago Wellington · Department of Primary Health Care and General Practice

PhD

About

126
Publications
29,556
Reads
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2,413
Citations
Additional affiliations
April 2012 - December 2015
University of Otago Wellington
Position
  • Research Associate

Publications

Publications (126)
Article
Full-text available
Background Physical function assessment is key for the management of knee musculoskeletal conditions. There are a wide variety of self-reported outcome measures (SROMs) and performance-based outcome measures (PBOMs) to assess physical function of individuals with knee conditions. However, the content of these measures has not been explored. Object...
Article
Objective The aim of this study was to culturally adapt the Osteoarthritis Knowledge Scale (OAKS) into a simplified Chinese version and to evaluate its measurement properties among Chinese‐speaking populations. Methods The OAKS scale was translated and cross‐culturally adapted following COSMIN guidelines. A total of 368 participants were recruited...
Article
Background Many outcome measures used in lower‐limb osteoarthritis (OA) present ceiling effects. This compromises the ability of those measures to accurately assess people with higher levels of physical function. Understanding of the difficulty and importance of physical activities would enable the inclusion of challenging and meaningful activities...
Article
Objective To develop and evaluate a new patient-reported outcome measure (PROM) to assess people’s knowledge and beliefs about low back pain. Methods This study followed the COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments guidelines. An 18-item preliminary version of the Back pain Knowledge and beliefs Survey (BacKS)...
Article
Background The Osteoarthritis Knowledge Scale (OAKS) is a validated tool for assessing knowledge about hip and knee osteoarthritis (OA). However, to date, there has been no translation and adaptation of the OAKS for the Turkish population. Objectives To translate and cross‐culturally adapt the OAKS into Turkish and to assess its psychometric prope...
Conference Paper
Background: Many physiotherapists still manage their patients mainly from a biomedical point of view. The purpose of this study was to analyze the effect of two different e-learning interventions on knowledge, attitudes and beliefs of physiotherapists managing low back pain (LBP). Methods: Physiotherapists were allocated (1/1) either to an experim...
Article
Full-text available
Background There is a need to increase the capacity and capability of musculoskeletal researchers to design, conduct, and report high-quality clinical trials. The objective of this study was to identify and prioritise clinical trial learning needs of musculoskeletal researchers in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. Findings will be used to inform...
Presentation
Full-text available
Many physiotherapists still manage their patients mainly from a biomedical point of view. The purpose of this study was to analyze the effect of two different e-learning interventions on knowledge, attitudes and beliefs of physiotherapists managing low back pain (LBP). An interactive e-learning intervention focusing on patient’s reassurance, self-m...
Article
Background Psychosocial factors influence low back pain (LBP) and guidelines recommend assessing unhelpful beliefs. The Back Pain Attitudes Questionnaire (Back-PAQ) is an instrument developed to assess LBP attitudes and beliefs. There is currently no Swedish translation of Back-PAQ. Objectives To translate and culturally adapt the Back-PAQ into Sw...
Article
Introduction Advanced and extended primary health care practice roles have been developed in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) for dietetics, nursing, pharmacy, and physiotherapy professions. Advanced musculoskeletal physiotherapy roles in primary health care could address escalating health care costs, challenges to workforce sustainability and inefficient...
Preprint
Full-text available
Background To identify and prioritise clinical trial learning needs of musculoskeletal researchers in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, to inform development of an e-learning musculoskeletal clinical trials course. Methods A two-round online Delphi study was conducted with an inter-disciplinary panel of musculoskeletal researchers from Australia...
Article
Introduction Community-based primary care physiotherapy has developed through private practice, fee-for-service model in Aotearoa New Zealand where independent businesses operate in competition. Aim We aimed to explore how the private practice model of physiotherapy impacts patient care, physiotherapists, and professional behaviour. Methods Six phy...
Article
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Objectives The current study used a network analysis approach to explore the complexity of attitudes and beliefs held in people with and without low back pain (LBP). The study aimed to (1) quantify the adjusted associations between individual items of the Back Pain Attitudes Questionnaire (Back-PAQ), and (2) identify the items with the strongest co...
Article
Background Perceived diagnostic uncertainty can leave adolescents confused about their condition and impede their ability to understand “what's wrong with me”. Our aim is to develop credible explanations about the condition for adolescents suffering from non‐traumatic knee pain. Methods This multiple‐method study integrated findings from two syste...
Article
Full-text available
Introduction: Knee osteoarthritis (OA) negatively impacts the health outcomes and equity, social and employment participation, and socio-economic wellbeing of those affected. Little community-based support is offered to people with knee OA in Aotearoa New Zealand. Identifying Māori and non-Māori with knee OA in community pharmacy and providing co-...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Clinical practice guidelines promote bio-psychosocial management of patients suffering from low back pain (LBP). The objective of this study was to examine the current knowledge, attitudes and beliefs of physiotherapists about a guideline-adherent approach to LBP and to assess the ability of physiotherapists to recognise signs of a spe...
Article
Full-text available
Objectives: Using a case vignette of an adult (George) presenting with hip pain consistent with hip OA, this study aimed to describe: (a) whether physiotherapists make diagnoses and identify bodily structures using either patient history and/or physical examination findings; (b) which diagnoses and bodily structures physiotherapists attribute to t...
Article
Full-text available
Introduction Pre-registration interprofessional rural immersion programmes provide students with first-hand insight into challenges faced in rural clinical practice and can influence future practice intentions. The impact of short rural and hauora Māori interdisciplinary placements on early healthcare careers is unknown. Aim Explore whether a 5-we...
Article
Background: Health systems globally need more clinicians to work rurally and in community-based primary care. This study explores factors influencing health graduates’ choice of clinical setting and geographical location during early careers, across a range of disciplines that work together to support the health of people in community-based and...
Article
Background: Health systems globally need more clinicians to work rurally and in community-based primary care. This study explores factors influencing health graduates’ choice of clinical setting and geographical location during early careers, across a range of disciplines that work together to support the health of people in community-based and rur...
Preprint
Full-text available
INTRODUCTION Perceived diagnostic uncertainty can leave adolescents confused about their condition and impede their ability to understand “what’s wrong with me” . Our aim is to develop credible explanations (trustworthy and understandable explanation of the condition) for adolescents suffering from chronic non-traumatic knee pain. METHODS This mul...
Article
Background: Real-world adherence to clinical practice guidelines is often poor, resulting in sub-standard patient care and unnecessary healthcare costs. This study evaluates the effect of a guideline-implementation intervention for the management of low back pain (LBP) in general practice-the Fear Reduction Exercised Early (FREE) approach-on LBP-r...
Article
Objective: Accurate knowledge is central to effective self-care of osteoarthritis (OA). This study aimed to assess the measurement properties of the Osteoarthritis Knowledge Scale (OAKS) with versions for the hip and knee. Methods: Participants with hip OA (n = 144), knee OA (n = 327), and no OA (n = 735) were recruited. Rasch analysis was condu...
Article
Full-text available
Purpose An online randomised experiment found that the labels lumbar sprain , non-specific low back pain (LBP), and episode of back pain reduced perceived need for imaging, surgery and second opinions compared to disc bulge , degeneration , and arthritis among 1447 participants with and without LBP. They also reduced perceived seriousness of LBP an...
Article
Full-text available
Objective To assess whether a preregistration interprofessional education (IPE) programme changed attitudes towards teamwork and team skills during health professionals’ final year of training and first 3 years of professional practice. Design Prospective, longitudinal, non-randomised trial. Setting Final year health professional training at thre...
Article
Synopsis: Involving patients as partners in research enables their concerns, perspectives, lived experiences, and priorities to be integrated into research. Involving patient partners improves research processes, outcomes, and translating findings into practice. Although musculoskeletal researchers consider it is important to involve patient partn...
Article
Background: Osteoarthritis (OA) clinical guidelines recommend self-management education, but education is often not included in primary care consultations. Objective: To explore pharmacists' and patients' perceptions of a pharmacist-led model of service delivery for knee OA that was integrated within pharmacies' day-to-day workflow. Methods: C...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Diagnostic labels may influence treatment intentions. We examined the effect of labelling low back pain (LBP) on beliefs about imaging, second opinion, surgery, seriousness, recovery, work, and physical activities. Methods: Six-arm online randomised experiment with blinded participants with and without LBP. Participants received one...
Article
Full-text available
Objective Test the feasibility of conducting stan individually randomised controlled trial recruiting people with knee osteoarthritis (OA) in community pharmacies and evaluate the impacts of a novel information booklet. Design People with knee OA were identified by pharmacy staff using clinical criteria and randomised to receive a novel informatio...
Article
Background As the Back Pain Attitudes Questionnaire (Back-PAQ), a validated instrument, could be performed to evaluate biopsychosocial dimensions of back pain, it has not been translated and adapted for Turkish population. Objectives It was aimed to translate and cross-culturally adapt the Back-PAQ (versions of 34-item, 20-item, and 10-item) into...
Article
Surveys are widely used in interprofessional education (IPE) research and these often collect free-text data. The potential contribution of free-text data to analysis and interpretation is often missed through separate reporting of qualitative and quantitative results, or free-text analyses being superficial or limited to subsets of data. There is...
Article
Full-text available
Background Implementation of best-practice care for patients with low back pain (LBP) is an important issue. Physiotherapists’ who hold unhelpful beliefs are less likely to adhere to guidelines and may negatively influence their patients’ beliefs. Pre-registration education is critical in moving towards a biopsychosocial model of care. This study a...
Article
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BACKGROUND AND CONTEXTGlobally, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has highlighted the need for better interprofessional collaboration and teamwork. When disciplines have worked together to undertake testing, deliver care and administer vaccines, progress against COVID-19 has been made. Yet, teamwork has often not happened, wasting pr...
Article
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Background Clinical practice guidelines commonly recommend adopting a biopsychosocial (BPS) framework by practitioners managing musculoskeletal pain. However, it remains unclear how osteopaths implement a BPS framework in the management of musculoskeletal pain. Hence, the objective of this review was to systematically appraise the literature on the...
Article
Full-text available
Background Physiotherapists' biomedical orientation influences the implementation of evidenced-based care for low back pain (LBP) management. However, information on physiotherapists’ own beliefs about their back and LBP and the influence of these on clinical decisions and advice is lacking. Objectives To identify attitudes and beliefs about LBP a...
Article
Full-text available
The sacroiliac joint (SIJ) is often considered to be involved when people present for care with low back pain where SIJ is located. However, determining why the pain has arisen can be challenging, especially in the absence of a specific cause such as pregnancy, disease, or trauma, when the SIJ might be identified as a source of symptoms with the he...
Article
Objective To ascertain former students' perceptions of and influences from a final‐year pre‐registration, rurally located, clinically based, 5 week interprofessional program on their subsequent work and career in the health professions. Design Online survey delivered 5 years post‐program (4 years post‐graduation). Setting The Tairāwhiti interprof...
Article
Full-text available
Objectives 1) Develop unidimensional instruments to measure osteoarthritis (OA) knowledge among people with hip or knee OA, and 2) assess the structural validity, internal consistency, cross-cultural validity/measurement invariance, test-retest reliability, and measurement error of the Hip Osteoarthritis Knowledge Scale (HOAKS) and the Knee Osteoar...
Preprint
Full-text available
Background: Clinical practice guidelines commonly recommend adopting a biopsychosocial (BPS) framework by practitioners managing musculoskeletal (MSK) pain. However, it remains unclear how osteopaths implement a BPS framework in the management of MSK pain. Hence, the objective of this review was to systematically appraise the literature on the curr...
Article
Context: As psychosocial factors have been recognised as significant predictors of the recovery trajectory from chronic back pain, the 34-item Back Pain Attitudes Questionnaire (Back-PAQ) was developed based on themes obtained from patient interviews, but previous psychometric analyses with a general population sample revealed uncertainty around th...
Article
Background and purpose: The way health professionals consume that informal professional education is changing. Physiotherapists are relying more on using electronic sources of information, including social media, to answer clinical questions. This study aims to identify the sources of electronic information physiotherapists in New Zealand use with...
Article
Background: The Back Pain Attitudes Questionnaire (Back-PAQ) is a tool developed for the assessment of attitudes about back pain. However, this tool is not available in the Arabic language. The availability of the Arabic version of the questionnaire will enable clinicians and researchers in Arabic-speaking countries to assess patients' attitudes t...
Article
Full-text available
Background The Back Pain Attitudes Questionnaire (Back-PAQ) was developed to evaluate attitudes and beliefs of the general public, people with back pain, and healthcare professionals about the spine. Objectives To translate and cross-culturally adapt the Back-PAQ (34-item and 10-item versions) into Brazilian-Portuguese (Back-PAQ-Br) and test its m...
Article
Background low back pain (LBP) is highly prevalent, very disabling and carries an enormous economic burden. The multifactorial characteristic of LBP often does not allow identification of a single pathoanatomic driver of pain. Unhelpful beliefs are associated with elevated levels of pain and may have a negative impact on the recovery of an episode...
Article
Full-text available
Objective This study aimed to explore consumers’, clinicians’, and arthritis advocates’ perceptions of a novel osteoarthritis (OA) information booklet that challenged existing beliefs, integrated a biopsychosocial perspective, and incorporated consumer voice and experience. Design A mixed-methods study was conducted using an evaluation survey comp...
Article
Background: low back pain (LBP) is the main cause of years lived with disability worldwide. Psychosocial factors have been shown to be good predictors of persistent LBP. Within these, unhelpful beliefs about the back seem to be important in the development and chronicity of the symptoms. The Back Pain Attitudes Questionnaire (Back-PAQ) is an instru...
Article
Background Musculoskeletal (MSK) pain conditions have a substantial influence on the quality of life. Psychosocial factors such as depression, anxiety and social isolation have been shown to play an important role in the development and management of MSK pain. Therefore, clinical practice guidelines commonly recommend adopting a biopsychosocial (BP...
Article
Changes to healthcare design and delivery involving advanced physiotherapy roles may help health systems to meet challenges imposed by ageing populations, long-term conditions and unsustainable healthcare costs. This narrative literature review examined recent peer-reviewed literature (2010–2017), including primary studies and systematic reviews, t...
Article
Interprofessional education (IPE) programs for pre-registration health science students are largely offered within one institution including different schools or faculties. Sometimes in small or regional institutions where there are limited student numbers or few professional training programs, or where larger institutions do not offer particular p...
Article
Full-text available
Background Effective and cost-effective primary care treatments for low back pain (LBP) are required to reduce the burden of the world’s most disabling condition. This study aimed to compare the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the Fear Reduction Exercised Early (FREE) approach to LBP (intervention) with usual general practitioner (...
Article
The sacroiliac joint (SIJ) is often considered to be involved when people present for care with low back pain where the sacroiliac joint (SIJ) is located. However, determining why the pain has arisen can be challenging, especially in the absence of a specific cause such as pregnancy, disease, or trauma, where the SIJ may be identified as a source o...
Article
Full-text available
Objective To measure confidence and attitudes of the current and emerging interprofessional workforce concerning osteoarthritis (OA) care. Methods Study design is a multinational (Australia, New Zealand, Canada) cross‐sectional survey of clinicians (general practitioners [GPs], GP registrars, primary care nurses, and physiotherapists) and final‐ye...
Article
Objective: Consistent evidence-practice gaps in osteoarthritis (OA) care are observed in primary care settings globally. Building workforce capacity to deliver high-value care requires a contemporary understanding of barriers to care delivery. We aimed to explore barriers to OA care delivery among clinicians and students. Design: A cross-section...
Article
Background: Evidence that interprofessional education (IPE) leads to better teamwork and improved interprofessional collaboration has created a drive to establish pre-registration IPE health science and social care programs. Yet there is limited guidance available for teachers new to IPE.Objectives: To provide first-time teachers practical strategi...
Article
Pain is a big problem in New Zealand. It is going to get worse as the populations ages. Pain is the number one reason people will visit their GP. Many clinicians are not sure what needs treating and how best to treat it.
Article
Pain is a big problem in New Zealand. It is going to get worse as the populations ages. Pain is the number one reason people will visit their GP. Many clinicians are not sure what needs treating and how best to treat it.
Article
Social networks are informal relationships often with social ties and voluntary or mandatory obligations that can positively support a patient with multimorbidity. This exploratory study sought insights into the social networks of New Zealand people with multimorbidity and also the work of those nominated as providing significant support. Ten parti...
Article
Full-text available
Background: This study aimed to explore the beliefs of people with knee osteoarthritis (OA) about the disease, and how these beliefs had formed and what impact these beliefs had on activity participation, health behaviour, and self-management. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 13 people with knee OA recruited from general p...
Article
Full-text available
Introduction Interprofessional practice is recognised as an important element of safe and effective healthcare. However, few studies exist that evaluate how preregistration education contributes to interprofessional competencies, and how these competencies develop throughout the early years of a health professional’s career. This quasiexperimental...