TEXT4myBACK - The Development Process of a Self-Management Intervention Delivered Via Text Message for Low Back Pain.
Carolina G Fritsch, Paulo H Ferreira, Joanna L Prior and 14 others
PMID 34179764WHAT IT FOUND
Developers created 82 one-way text messages for low back pain self-management.
Experts and consumers rated the messages, leading to revisions in 34% and 42% of drafts respectively. The final bank covers exercise, education, mood, care, sleep, and medication, but its effectiveness is untested.
Key findings
01Eighty-two text messages were developed covering six domains: exercise, education, mood, use of care, sleep, and medication.
02Thirty-four percent of draft messages were modified after expert review, while forty-two percent were modified after consumer review.
03The intervention is designed as one-way automated messaging and has not yet been tested for clinical effectiveness.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The study describes development and content validation only; it does not test whether the messages actually reduce pain or disability. The acceptability of the entire intervention as a whole was not assessed, only individual messages. Demographic data for the consumer reviewers were not collected beyond sex, so it is unclear if the feedback represents a diverse patient population. The messages are one-way and unidirectional, which may limit engagement compared to interactive tools.
Declared interests
The paper does not report specific funding sources or conflicts of interest in the provided text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the high expert and consumer ratings as evidence that the text messages work. These scores reflect perceived quality and clarity, not clinical effectiveness. The intervention has not yet been tested in a trial.