Chiropractors and osteopaths are continuing to treat patients suffering from back pain long after the treatment has failed to improve their condition, according to a disturbing new study.

If treatment carries on for too long without success, patients may become overly dependent on the practitioners who offer them emotional support but no prospect of cure. Researchers are worried that the patients start to see their back pain as a 'disease' rather than as something that they can manage to deal with by themselves.

The financial costs can also be high. More than 700,000 therapy sessions for back pain are carried out every year in the UK. A single session can cost from £25 to £100.

A study carried out by psychologists at Royal Holloway, University of London, interviewed practitioners who admitted to continuing to treat patients whose condition was not getting better.

Dr Tamar Pincus, the psychologist who carried out the study, said: 'We didn't find that they were carrying on treating people simply in order to get more money. Many of them had long waiting lists, so they were not really short of work. Instead, it seemed to be that they viewed their role as one in which they had to support patients psychologically, almost as a counsellor, rather than seeing it simply as a curative one.'

The study, published in the European Journal of Pain, concludes that their approach goes against guidelines which encourage patients to manage their own conditions, and for patients to be referred to multi-disciplinary teams once it is clear that they are not likely to recover.