Clinical implications and future directions
SECONDARY
The current trend in daily practice is a stepped care strategy with attention to self-management. This includes that patients are treated in accordance with their symptom severity by the right health care professional in the right place at the right time. In the Netherlands health care insurance companies require that patients follow a primary care intervention first before they can be referred to secondary care. In our opinion, the PARASOL intervention, if optimized, suits in this requirement. In case of deterioration of symptoms or unsatisfying results, patients could be referred to secondary care.Given the adequate short-term relief and the improvements within the intervention group on short- and long-term, PARASOL has the potential to become a valuable primary care intervention. The PARASOL intervention can prevent high costs for society, including health care costs. Therefore, cost-effectiveness from a societal perspective of the PARASOL intervention compared to usual care in patients with moderate MUPS will be evaluated in another study.