Background
lumbar degenerative, pain
Although there is a growing body of research on fusion surgery for lumbar degenerative conditions [To design prehabilitation and rehabilitation programmes that adequately support patients to be more physically active and less sedentary, it is imperative to move beyond cross-sectional data and instead measure patients’ physical activity both before and after surgery. It is also important to consider physical activity in all its complexity, encompassing a spectrum of behaviours such as sedentary behaviour (SB, e.g. watching television), light intensity physical activity (e.g. doing the dishes), and moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA, e.g. brisk walking or jogging) [Understanding the complexity of post-surgical movement behaviours necessitates a closer examination of potential barriers to successful outcomes following surgery for lumbar degenerative conditions, such as pain-related psychological factors. Such factors, encompassed in the fear-avoidance model by Vlaeyen et al. [In another one of our longitudinal studies, we found that preoperative self-efficacy for exercise was significantly associated with postoperative movement behaviour in terms of MVPA while fear of movement and pain catastrophising were not [To our knowledge, no study has yet investigated the association between preoperative pain-related psychological factors on movement behaviour 12 months after lumbar fusion surgery.