1000-word informational article about low back pain

• Status: Closed
• Prêmio: $100
• Inscrições Recebidas: 5
• Vencedor: civicon75

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Task: Create a 1000-word informational article about low back pain
Target audience: Low back pain sufferers (middle class and fairly health-literate who are aware of their condition and usually have seen quite a number of health professionals about it) and health professionals (doctors, chiropractors, alexander technique teachers, nurses etc) who deal with low back pain sufferers on a daily basis; so the language of the article should be non-scientific but not oversimplified as we are dealing here with people who can take a bit of information without getting overloaded quickly
• Subheadings should be storyboarded to allow the reader just to scan the article and understand the content without the need to read every single paragraph
o Example: ‘One in ten people globally are affected by low back pain’

• The reader should be engaged directly (but only occasionally, not all the time), with emphasis on the low back pain sufferers rather than the healthcare professionals, i.e. ‘If you see your doctor, you will most likely be offered…’
• The key information (i.e. epidemiology, natural course of disease, clinical guidelines, outcome measures in LBP research, clinically meaningful improvement) should be referenced, but please stick to one or two references at a time – remember the reader will most likely not be too interested in the references but for the key information they should be there if some of the healthcare professionals want to dive in further
With this article we don’t really need to go into much detail as the reader can get more detailed info from online resources and usually is familiar with the subject.
The following topics should be covered:
• Definition (including symptoms, please emphasize specific/non-specific LBP and acute/chronic LBP) and epidemiology (how many people globally are affected) of the condition
• Causes
• Who is affected, who is at risk
• What is the natural course of disease (ie. does it get better on its own, if yes, how long does it usually take to “heal”, please emphasize acute/chronic LBP)
• What can I expect if I see a Doctor/physician (please note here I would like to see reflections of the target countries’ clinical guidelines – Australian, Europe/UK and US/Canada), if possible do not split between countries (please provide me with a 4-5 sentence summary); if there are key recommendations which are only valid in one country, then this should be mentioned
• In low back pain clinical trials, what are the most important outcome measures most relevant for patients (ie. pain, quality of life) – please elaborate briefly
• In low back pain research, what is considered a clinically meaningful improvement of the condition?
Skills level required:
• Healthcare professional with research experience or healthcare researcher, who is able to convert complex health information into a simplified language fit for an educated lay audience
• Able to search common medical databases with appropriate keywords
• Able to read and interpret clinical studies and systematic reviews
• Understanding of how to cite and reference the medical literature

Although the best project will get the prize, I am on the hunt for more than one writer for these type of projects, so even if only one gets the prize, I may select more writers who display similar quality writing for extensively more work of similar projects that I have in the pipeline.

Habilidades Recomendadas

• Saúde
• Medicina
• Research Writing