RESEARCH ARTICLE The effect of patient, prov i s

is available at the end of the articleBackground Interest in physical therapy utilization has grown in re-cent decades. In the United States, national inflation-adjusted expenditures for spine-related physical therapy have increased by 78 % between 1997 and 2005, which is more than the 65 % rise in total estimated care expen-ditures for the condition [1]. Several authors tried to understand if physical therapy is used properly in com-paring its utilization in different settings. They found variations across countries in terms of the intensity of physical therapy per treatment episode [2]. There is a variety of acute or chronic conditions justifying physical therapy, one of the main complaint being back pain [3,4]. The treatment of this condition required an aver-age of five sessions in United Kingdom, while the US average was 11 [5,6]. Variations in physical therapy use were analyzed based on the propensity to start physical therapy [3,7-10], th