OBJECTIVE: To study the long-term effects of a workplace intervention in addition to structured physiotherapy regarding self-reported measures in patients with acute/subacute neck and/or back pain. DESIGN: WorkUp -- a cluster-randomised controlled trial in 32 primary care centers in Sweden, from January 2013 through December 2014 (ClinicalTrials.gov ID NCT02609750). INTERVENTION: Structured physiotherapy with the workplace dialogue 'convergence dialogue meeting' (CDM), conducted by the treating physiotherapist as an add-on. Reference group received structured physiotherapy. SUBJECTS: Adults, 18 to 67 years (mean 43.7, standard deviation (SD) 12.2), 65.3% women with acute/subacute neck and/or back pain who had worked >= 4 weeks past year, considered at risk of sick leave or were on short-term sick leave (<= 60 days) were included (n = 352). OUTCOME MEASURES: Self-reported function, functional rating index (FRI), health-related quality of life (EQ-5D-3L) and work ability (Work Ability Score, WAS) at 12 months follow-up. RESULTS: The mean differences in outcomes between intervention and reference group were; -0.76 (95% confidence interval (CI) -2.39 to 0.88; FRI), 0.02 (95% CI -0.04 to 0.08; EQ-5D-3L) and -0.05 (95% CI -0.63 to 0.53; WAS). From baseline to 12 months, the intervention group improved function from 46.5 (SD 19.7) to 10.5 (SD 7.3) on FRI; health-related quality of life from 0.53 (SD 0.29) to 0.74 (SD 0.20) on EQ-5D and work ability from 5.7 (SD 2.6) to 7.6 (SD 2.1) on WAS. CONCLUSION: Despite a clinically relevant improvement over time, there were no significant differences in improvement between groups, thus we conclude that CDM had no effect on self-reported measures in this study.

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