Screening for Referral of Serious Pathology by Physical Examination Tests in Patients with Back or Chest Pain: A Systematic Review

Federico Andreoletti, Filippo Maselli (), Lorenzo Storari, Andrea Vongher, Monica Erbesato, Marco Testa and Andrea Turolla
Additional contact information
Federico Andreoletti: Departement of Neurosciences, Rehabilitation, Ophthalmology, Genetic and Maternal Infantile Sciences (DINOGMI), University of Genova-Campus of Savona, 17100 Savona, Italy
Filippo Maselli: Department of Human Neurosciences, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy
Lorenzo Storari: Department of Human Neurosciences, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy
Andrea Vongher: Departement of Neurosciences, Rehabilitation, Ophthalmology, Genetic and Maternal Infantile Sciences (DINOGMI), University of Genova-Campus of Savona, 17100 Savona, Italy
Monica Erbesato: Departement of Neurosciences, Rehabilitation, Ophthalmology, Genetic and Maternal Infantile Sciences (DINOGMI), University of Genova-Campus of Savona, 17100 Savona, Italy
Marco Testa: Departement of Neurosciences, Rehabilitation, Ophthalmology, Genetic and Maternal Infantile Sciences (DINOGMI), University of Genova-Campus of Savona, 17100 Savona, Italy
Andrea Turolla: Division of Occupational Medicine, IRCCS Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria di Bologna, 40138 Bologna, Italy

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 24, 1-17

Abstract: Objective: To investigate the most common physical examination tests (PET) for the screening for referral of patients with back or chest pain caused by serious pathology. Methods: A systematic review was conducted. Searches were performed on seven electronic databases between June 2020 and December 2021. Only studies evaluating patients with back and/or chest pain with clear reporting of PETs and prompt patient referrals were included. Results: 316 full texts were included, and these studies had a total of 474/492 patients affected by a serious disease. Only 26 studies of them described suspicion of serious disease due to at least one positive PET. Cardiac/pulmonary auscultation and heartbeats/blood pressure measurements were the most frequently reported tests. None of the reported studies included physiotherapists and chiropractors who reported the use of various tests, such as: cardiac and pulmonary auscultation, lung percussion, costovertebral angle tenderness, and lymph node palpation, highlighting a lack of attention in measuring vital parameters. On the contrary, doctors and nurses reported the assessment of the range of motion of the thoracolumbar spine and hip less frequently. Conclusions: Appropriate reporting of PETs is sparse, and their utilization is heterogeneous among different healthcare professionals. Further primary studies are needed to describe PETs results in patients suffering from back and/or chest pain.

Keywords: physical examination; back pain; chest pain; serious pathology; referral (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/24/16418/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/24/16418/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:24:p:16418-:d:996389

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().