LAUSR

OBJECTIVES Development and internal validation of prognostic models for post-treatment and 1-year recovery in patients with neck pain in primary care. DESIGN Prospective cohort study. SETTING Primary care manual therapy practices. PARTICIPANTS Patients with non-specific neck pain of any duration (n=1193). INTERVENTION Usual care manual therapy. OUTCOME MEASURES Recovery defined in terms of pain intensity, disability, and global perceived improvement directly post-treatment and at 1-year follow-up. RESULTS All post-treatment models exhibited acceptable discriminative performance after derivation (AUC≥0.7). The developed post-treatment disability model exhibited the best overall performance (R2=0.24; IQR, 0.22-0.26), discrimination (AUC=0.75; 95% CI, 0.63-0.84), and calibration (slope 0.92; IQR, 0.91-0.93). After internal validation and penalization, this model retained acceptable discriminative performance (AUC=0.74). The five other models, including those predicting 1-year recovery, did not reach acceptable discriminative performance after internal validation. Baseline pain duration, disability, and pain intensity were consistent predictors across models. CONCLUSION A post-treatment prognostic model for disability was successfully developed and internally validated. This model has potential to inform primary care clinicians about a patient's individual prognosis after treatment, but external validation is required before clinical use can be recommended.