IHO045

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Synopsis

Chronic neck pain exerts a massive health burden and has been identified by our clinician, consumer and industry partners as a major health priority. Chronic idiopathic neck pain is neck pain not triggered by a specific traumatic event, which remains a substantial unmet health need - there are currently limited options for effective treatment. It is recognised to be a complex condition with many potential contributors. Our research team has been at the forefront internationally of identifying and understanding these contributors and designing interventions that modify them and reduce their impact. We have now developed an integrated treatment approach that combines several promising component treatments into a coherent, progressive complex care package. The ReconNECKt trial will compare our new treatment to a carefully designed placebo treatment, which is equally credible, involves equal interaction with health professionals and controls for any placebo effects. Over five years, we will recruit from the community 434 participants with chronic neck pain. We will randomly allocate them to the new treatment or to the control treatment. Both treatments take 8 weeks, are delivered via telehealth and involve 8 sessions with a trained physiotherapist or exercise physiologist. We will assess pain, disability and a range of physical and psychological factors at multiple time points. Our primary outcome is disability due to neck pain at 12 weeks. We predict that people who participate in the new treatment will be less disabled by neck pain, have less pain, less worry and more confidence to return to normal life, than people who participate in the control treatment. We will assess participants for a year after treatment. We will also fully assess the safety, acceptability and cost effectiveness of our new treatment. We have included consumers and end-users (clinicians) in the refining and piloting of the treatment and they will play a central role throughout the project.