RESEARCH ARTICLE
Results of an International Survey of Practice Patterns for Establishing Prognosis in Neck Pain: The ICON Project
David M Walton*, 1, Joy C MacDermid2, P. Lina Santaguida3, Anita Gross4, Lisa Carlesso3, ICON
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2013Volume: 7
Issue: Suppl 4
First Page: 387
Last Page: 395
Publisher ID: TOORTHJ-7-387
DOI: 10.2174/1874325001307010387
Article History:
Received Date: 12/10/2012Revision Received Date: 12/10/2012
Acceptance Date: 12/10/2012
Electronic publication date: 20/9/2013
Collection year: 2013

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/) which permits unrestrictive use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Results of an international survey of health care providers for neck pain are reported. The survey specifically collected self-reported practice patterns for establishing a prognosis in neck pain. Over 440 responses from 27 countries were collected. Descriptive results indicate that respondents assigned large prognostic impact to factors including mechanism of injury and psychological or behavioral constructs. Range of motion, age and sex were routinely collected despite relatively moderate impact on prognosis. A comparison between chiropractic and manual/physical therapy groups showed differences in practice patterns that were unlikely to affect prognostic accuracy. The results suggest a gap exists between current best-evidence and actual practice when the goal is to establish a prognosis in neck pain.