Researchers from HMRI, The University of Newcastle, The University of Sydney and Hunter New England Local Health District have been awarded one of six HCF Research Foundation Translational Research Grants (TRGs) to improve healthcare services quality and access for older Australians.

Researchers from HMRI, The University of Newcastle, The University of Sydney and Hunter New England Local Health District have been awarded one of six HCF Research Foundation Translational Research Grants (TRGs) to improve healthcare services quality and access for older Australians.

As well as being a leading cause of disability, lower back pain is one of the most common reasons for visiting a doctor and presenting to a hospital emergency department. It is a significant burden to the health sector, costing more than $4.8 billion annually in healthcare consumption, medication use, productivity losses and forced early retirements.
Research has shown that lifestyle factors including excess weight, lack of exercise, poor diet and smoking are all linked to lower back pain, and that symptoms improved when such lifestyle factors have been addressed.

The Healthy Lifestyle Program (HeLP) for low back pain study was conductedith the aim to determine the effectiveness of a multi-focused program to reduce disability in people with chronic lower back pain, compared with usual physiotherapy care.
Drawing on cognitive–behavioural therapy (CBT) and motivational interviewing (MI), HeLP aimed to support people to manage their lower back pain and facilitate positive behaviour change related to maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Simon Davidson, physiotherapist and PhD candidate in HMRI’s Population Health research program.

“HeLP showed that addressing lifestyle factors can improve/reduce the levels of disability that people with lower back pain are living with”, says Simon Davidson, a physiotherapist and PhD candidate in HMRI’s Population Health research program.
“Based on this we have expanded the study to include other musculoskeletal conditions including hip and knee pain, as lifestyle factors are also important in their management” Mr Davidson said. “We’ve also expanded the study to focus on older people, as these sorts of conditions tend to become more common with age”.

The grant from the HCF Foundation will allow researchers to expand the HeLP study even further, with the aim to make the program more accessible to patients, particularly in rural and regional, as well as identify the most efficient training and capacity building method for time-poor clinicians.
 “The grant will allow us to test whether telehealth is as effective as face-to-face delivery, as used in the original HeLP trial” Mr Davidson said. “It will also allow us to test whether a lean training model for clinicians to deliver the HeLP program is as effective as the more in-depth training model we originally used.”

About the HCF Research Foundation
The HCF Research Foundation funds research proposals that use and enhance current knowledge to improve healthcare outcomes, including the quality, efficiency, equity of and access to health services. Through the Health Services Research Grants scheme, the HCF Research Foundation aims to deliver better health outcomes and access to affordable, high-quality health care when and where it is needed.