Rate My Professor Ben Darlow

Professor Ben Darlow serves as Professor in the Department of Primary Health Care and General Practice at the University of Otago, Wellington, a position he assumed in February 2025 following his tenure in the department since 2009. A registered Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy Specialist since 2015, he completed his undergraduate physiotherapy degree at the University of Otago in 1998, a Master of Sports Physiotherapy at Curtin University in 2002, and his PhD at the University of Otago in 2014. Ben maintains a clinical practice in Wellington and acts as the 5th Year Module Convenor for the medicine program. His teaching portfolio includes sessions on providing explanations to patients, understanding and managing pain, low back pain assessment and management in primary care, osteoarthritis management, physical activity and health. He led the redesign of the University of Otago's MBChB pain curriculum and participates in the Wellington Interprofessional Teaching Initiative.

Ben Darlow's research focuses on the assessment and measurement of health beliefs about common musculoskeletal conditions, their influences on well-being, and interventions to enhance knowledge, healthcare delivery, and patient outcomes. He leads the Otago Research Collaboration for Knee Arthritis (ORKA) since 2016, which has developed the Osteoarthritis Knowledge Scale (OAKS) and conducted the HRC-funded Knee Care for Arthritis through Pharmacy Study (KneeCAPS) clinical trial. In back pain research, he spearheaded the development of the Back Pain Attitudes Questionnaire (Back-PAQ), now available in multiple languages including Arabic, Chinese, and Spanish, and led studies on implementing the FREE approach in general practice. His work extends to interprofessional education through the Longitudinal Interprofessional (LIP) Study. Notable publications include "The Enduring Impact of What Clinicians Say to People With Low Back Pain" (Annals of Family Medicine, 2013, 385 citations), "The Association Between Health Care Professional Attitudes and Beliefs and the Attitudes and Beliefs, Clinical Management, and Outcomes of Patients with Low Back Pain: A Systematic Review" (European Journal of Pain, 2012, 651 citations), "Easy to Harm, Hard to Heal: Patient Views About the Back" (Spine, 2015, 191 citations), and recent works such as "Do We Trust Patients in Pain? What Would Happen If We Did?" (Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy, 2026). Darlow is a member of the University of Otago's Pain research theme Steering Group, the Physiotherapy New Zealand Professional Development Committee, and serves as a Specialist Assessor for the Physiotherapy Board of New Zealand.