PALS: peer support for community dwelling older people with chronic low back pain: a feasibility and acceptability study.
Kay Cooper, Patricia Schofield, Blair H Smith and 1 others
PMID 30928147WHAT IT FOUND
Peer support after physiotherapy was feasible and acceptable for older adults with chronic low back pain.
Volunteers delivered six fortnightly sessions, often face-to-face. Participants valued encouragement and having someone listen, but this small study did not test whether it reduced pain or disability.
Key findings
01All six peer support volunteers delivered six sessions of 1 to 3 hours about two weeks apart, and no problems were reported during the study.
02Five of the seven participants who returned the satisfaction questionnaire would recommend PALS to another person with chronic low back pain.
03Because the sample size was small, the outcome measures cannot be used to infer effects.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
Only 18 older adults were recruited, 12 were matched, and 8 completed the intervention, so the findings cannot show whether PALS works. The study was done in one geographical location in the UK and used self-selected community participants, not people recruited from physiotherapy departments. Because the sample was small, the outcome measures cannot be used to infer change. Baseline measures were completed by 12 participants and follow-up measures by 7, with some missing items. Two volunteers and two participants who did not complete or withdrew were not interviewed, so some views may be missing. Several participants had other health conditions, which may have affected outcomes.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as proof that peer support reduces pain, disability, or improves wellbeing. The study was designed to test whether PALS could be delivered and accepted, and the authors state that the small sample makes it inappropriate to infer effects from the outcome measures.