Naproxen With Cyclobenzaprine, Oxycodone/ Acetaminophen, or Placebo for Treating Acute Low Back Pain A Randomized Clinical Trial
Journal Club SummaryMethodology Score: 3.5/5 Usefulness Score: 3.5/5
Friedman BW, et al. JAMA. 2015;314(15):1572-1580. Full Article
In this pragmatic 3-arm RCT of Naproxen + placebo or cyclobenzaprine or acetaminophen/oxycodone for acute low back pain, there was no significant difference in the primary outcome of improvement in pain and functional scores at one week following discharge from the ED. The methodology of this study was quite robust, however the small sample size, lack of adherence to the investigational medications, and narrow selection criteria limit its applicability to our population. By: Dr. David Gruber
Epi lesson: Multiple Imputation for Missing Data When analyzing data from a dataset, most statistical software can only include cases where data is available for each of the included predictive variables. When data is missing for one or several important predictive variables, analysts have the option to “impute” the missing data. One simple strategy is to repla…
Friedman BW, et al. JAMA. 2015;314(15):1572-1580. Full Article
In this pragmatic 3-arm RCT of Naproxen + placebo or cyclobenzaprine or acetaminophen/oxycodone for acute low back pain, there was no significant difference in the primary outcome of improvement in pain and functional scores at one week following discharge from the ED. The methodology of this study was quite robust, however the small sample size, lack of adherence to the investigational medications, and narrow selection criteria limit its applicability to our population. By: Dr. David Gruber
Epi lesson: Multiple Imputation for Missing Data When analyzing data from a dataset, most statistical software can only include cases where data is available for each of the included predictive variables. When data is missing for one or several important predictive variables, analysts have the option to “impute” the missing data. One simple strategy is to repla…