Patients with low back pain are frequently encountered in primary care. Although a specific diagnosis cannot be made for most patients, it is likely that subgroups exist within the larger entity of non-specific low back pain. One subgroup that has been identified is patients who respond rapidly to spinal manipulation. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between two factors (duration and distribution of symptoms) and prognosis following spinal manipulation intervention. Data were taken from two previously published studies. Patients with low back pain underwent a standardised examination, including assessment of duration of the current symptoms in days and the distal-most distribution of symptoms. Based on prior research, patients with symptoms of < 16 days’ duration and no symptoms distal to the knee were considered to have a good prognosis following manipulation. All patients underwent up to two sessions of spinal manipulation treatment and a range of motion exercise. Oswestry disability scores were recorded before and after treatment. If ≥ 50% improvement on the Oswestry was achieved, the intervention was considered a success. Sensitivity, specificity and positive likelihood ratio were calculated for the association of the two criteria with the outcome of the treatment. One hundred and forty-one patients participated. Mean pre- and post-treatment Oswestry scores were 41.9 (± 10.9) and 24.1 (± 14.2), respectively. Sixty-three subjects (45%) had successful treatment outcomes. The sensitivity of the two criteria was 0.56 (95% CI 0.43 to 0.67), specificity was 0.92 (95% CI 0.84 to 0.96) and the positive likelihood ratio was 7.2 (95% CI 3.2 to 16.1).