Bowen Therapy for Chronic Non-specific Low Back Pain

Summary

There is emerging evidence that Bowen Therapy may improve musculoskeletal pain. While it can be an effective treatment strategy to enhance pain modulation; studies on the clinical effect are scarce. The aim of this study is to examine the effectiveness of Bowen therapy for people with chronic LBP on measures of pain, function, pain-related self-efficacy, and health related quality of life.

Parallel-group randomized controlled trial (RCT) study will be employed. Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS) will be adopted as a screening test upon the randomization. A cutoff of more than 30 points will be used to represents clinically relevant level of catastrophizing.

46 participants with informed consent who meet the eligibility criteria of study are recruited and randomly assigned to one of two groups i.e. Bowen Therapy group and Sham Bowen Conventional Therapy group. Permuted block randomization is applied to control the key confounding variable of catastrophizing which is significantly associated with pain and disability in chronic LBP. Sequentially numbered, opaque, sealed envelopes (SNOSE) is used to ensure the allocation sequence before the group allocation. Double blinding of participants and outcome assessor will be adopted. Measurements are collected at the baseline (Week 0), post-intervention (Week 6) and at a 4-week follow-up (Week 10). The primary outcomes are pain as measured by Percentage of Pain Intensity Difference (PID) and pain relief scale (PRS). The secondary outcomes are measuring the physical functioning, self-efficacy in pain and HRQoL using Owestry Disability Index (ODI), Pain Self-efficacy Questionnaire (PSEQ) and SF-12 (HK) respectively. Intervention is provided weekly for 6 sessions lasting 30-40 minutes per treatment session. The experimental group will receive Bowen therapy according to ISBT Bowen Therapy®. The control group will receive a usual OT therapy with the same number of treatment session, treatment time, including back care advice and functional rehab training.

Conditions

• Pain, Back

Interventions

PROCEDURE

Bowen therapy

Intervention is provided weekly for 6 sessions lasting 30-40 mins per treatment session

PROCEDURE

Sham Bowen therapy

Sham Intervention is provided weekly for 6 sessions lasting 30-40 mins per treatment session

Sponsors & Collaborators

• United Christian Hospital

  collaborator OTHER

• The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Andy S.K. Cheng, PhD · The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

DOUBLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

65 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2021-04-19

Primary Completion

2021-09-30

Completion

2022-06-30

Countries

• Hong Kong

Study Locations