Perceived Treatment Needs

Participants receiving best practice education more frequently chose exercise and other low-cost self-management options, and less frequently endorsed unnecessary or potentially harmful interventions. The BP and BP+PS groups showed very similar treatment preference profiles, with only small differences between them. Structural framing produced a marked shift away from self-management and toward passive, investigative, and invasive interventions. The mechanism behind structural framing's effect is that patients logically infer structural investigations and interventions are required when pain is attributed to structural damage. The most commonly perceived treatment needs across all groups were exercise, "wait and see," medication, and physiotherapy.