Unconventional Practitioners’ Causal Beliefs and Treatment Strategies for Chronic Low Back Pain in Rural Nigeria

Abstract

Chronic low back pain (CLBP) is highly prevalent and CLBP disability reinforces poverty and Nigerian rural-urban inequality. Most rural Nigerian dwellers with CLBP consult unconventional practitioners due to difficulty in accessing conventional health care. This interaction may influence back pain beliefs and behaviours, and health outcomes including disability. In line with the recent Lancet Low Back Pain series call to address widespread misconceptions in the population and among health practitioners about low back pain, this study explored the beliefs and management strategies of unconventional practitioners consulted by people living with CLBP in rural Nigeria. Qualitative semi-structured face-to-face individual interviews. Thematic analysis of transcripts was performed using the Framework approach. Nine unconventional practitioners consented to participate in this study. Patent medicine sellers and herbalists had biomedical beliefs about CLBP and encouraged passivity and drug dependence in patients. Pastors adopted spiritual or biopsychosocial-spiritual management models and either encouraged spiritual CLBP causal beliefs and spiritual healing expectations; or patients’ resilience and acceptance, respectively. Unconventional practitioners’ CLBP beliefs and management strategies aligned with the beliefs and coping strategies of patients who consulted them. Unconventional practitioners’ beliefs and management strategies may therefore contribute to the adverse impact of CLBP in rural Nigeria.