Correlations Between Family History of Psychiatric Illnesses and Outcomes of Spinal Cord Stimulation

Abstract

Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is a well-established procedure for chronic neuropathic pain. Research has established patients with personal psychiatric history do not fare as well as their correspondents following SCS surgery. We explored whether a documented psychiatric family history (PFH) correlated with worse outcomes following SCS surgery. We retrospectively reviewed our single-center, prospectively collected database of patients who received permanent SCS implants over the past eight years. Subjects were separated into those with documented PFH and those without. Subjects completed validated scales at preoperative, 6 ± 2 postoperative, and 12 ± 3 months postoperative visits. The percent change in scores from preoperative to postoperative timepoints was compared between subjects with PFH vs. controls. SCS subjects reporting a PFH demonstrated significantly worse 6-month outcomes on Pain Catastrophizing Scale-rumination subscale (p = 0.02), numeric rating scale (NRS) scores on "pain at its least" (p = 0.04) and NRS "pain right now" (p = 0.02). This group also endorsed greater disability as measured by the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) throughout the follow-up period (p = 0.04 at 6 ± 2 months, p = 0.001 at 12 ± 3 months). Subjects with PFH may experience less improvement in disability following SCS as compared to subjects without PFH. They may take longer to achieve the same outcomes, including pain relief and decrease in pain rumination. Our findings show that improvements in the PFH cohort are equivalent to that of the no PFH cohort on all measures except ODI at 12-month follow-up. Thus obtaining a detailed PFH prior to performing SCS is important in order to implement pre-operative coping training for PFH patients, rather than exclusion from SCS.