An estimated 8 million Americans require medical care or time off from work because of back pain each year. Despite advances in modern medicine, there is no cure for back pain and the most commonly prescribed remedy for this painful and debilitating condition is long-term self-management.A self-care program for better living, The Back Pain Helpbook includes mind-body methods for relaxation such as breathing and meditation techniques, strategies for combating the depression and fear that often accompany chronic pain, a comprehensive program for fitness including strengthening and stretching exercises, recommendations for prescription and over-the-counter drugs to ease back pain, advice for when to see your doctor and how to get the most out of those visits, tips for engaging in daily activities from sleeping to working to sex, and guidelines for avoiding flare-ups or managing them when they occur.

Although outcome measurement has become a prevailing means of evaluating health promotion, patient education, and other health services, the quality of many outcome measurements has declined. Responding to the need for a comprehensive, sensitive, and cost-effective means of administering outcome measures, Outcome Measures for Health Education and Other Health Care Interventions provides more than 50 self-administered scales for measuring health behaviors, health status, self-efficacy, and health care utilization. The majority of scales were developed by the Stanford Patient Education Research Center for use in their Chronic Disease Self-Management Study, while others provide a useful means of measuring the magnitude of change seen in patient education or health care evaluations. In addition, this extensive volume provides a detailed case study of how instruments were conceptualized and developed for the Chronic Disease Self-Management Study and provides complete psychometric details for all measures not previously published. An appendix containing the Spanish translation for many scales is an added bonus that will enable professionals to overcome many cross-cultural barriers that might contribute to inaccurate outcome measures.

Designed for students and professionals in nursing, health education, and the health/medical sciences, Outcome Measurement for Health Education and Other Health Care Interventions will prove to be a comprehensive, practical, and effective tool in accurately measuring outcomes.