Table 2 Themes and subthemes of primary health care provider interviews
Themes | Subthemes | ||
|---|---|---|---|
Beliefs about the origin and meaning of chronic low back pain | Structural alterations in the lumbar spine as a cause of chronic low back pain | The influence of providers’ own low back pain experiences on their beliefs | |
Psychosocial aspects as pain modulators | The relationship between perceived pain intensity and mood | The influence of the environment on pain | |
Therapeutic exercise as a treatment for chronic low back pain | Therapeutic exercise improves pain, while unsupervised physical exercise aggravates the pain | Mechanisms underlying the benefits of therapeutic exercise on pain | Difficulties in prescribing therapeutic exercise |
The biomedical attitude of primary care providers | The search for a diagnosis to justify pain | Education in postural hygiene | Recommendations for limiting work activity |
Difficulties in the clinical approach to chronic low back pain | Primary health care providers versus pharmacological treatment of chronic low back pain | Barriers in primary health care provider-patient communication | The need for primary health care providers to acquire new knowledge about pain |