Are family patterns related to the development of chronic back pain?

Abstract

of siblings and birth order as prognostic indicators for back The Hypochondriasis (Hs) and Hysteria (Hy) scales from chc MMPI were chosen as external measures of concurrent validity. These measures have been shown to be useful as prognostic signs regarding response to both medical treaunent of back pain (Wiltse & Rocchio, 1975) and psychological treaunent of operant components of back pain (Sternbach, 1974). The subjects were 56 pacients at Duke University Medical Center (the same setting in which Gentry, et al. conducted their study) who had been referred for psychological evaluations after an orthopaedic surgeon or neurosurgeon had made a diagnosis of chronic back pain. There were 29 males amd 27 females. Their mean age was 50.68 yr. All evaluations were done in 1977. Pearson product-moment correlations (Hays, 1963) were computed between Hypochondriasis scores and number of siblings (-.1629), between Hypochondriasis scores and birth order (.0778), between Hysteria scale scores and number of siblings ( -.I917 ), and bemeen Hysteria scale scores and birth order (-.0972). None of the correlations was significant (all ps > .05 ) . The results tend not to support the concurrent validity of number of siblings and birth order as prognostic indicators regarding back Therefore, it might be well for the clinician to use some circumspection in interpreting such data in cases of back However, the present study did not directly address the issue of predictive validity of the measures. It might be helpful to investigate the relationship of such family variables to length of time in recovery from back surgery, postoperative activity levels, etc. It is also possible that, while such variables may not by themselves have a significant psychosomatic impact, they m~ght have such an impact when interacting with other factors, such as marital status, age at the time of marriage, current size of family, presence of familial models for pain behavior, etc. In addition to descriptive studies like that of Gentry, et d., more systematic srud~es Including inferential statistics are needed.