Psychological stress of inpatients with acute and chronic lumbar syndrome

Abstract

As a result of its increasing incidence and social medical implications, low back pain with either chronic or acute symptoms presents a major challenge for our society. The psychological background of pain perception and valuation has been explored in various studies; frequently, no positive correlation was found between subjective pain perception and structural orthopedic findings. A symptoms checklist (SCL-90-R) was used to compare a group of patients hospitalized because of low back pain with a group of asymptomatic controls. Additionally, the pain-specific questionnaire (ERSS) was employed to verify the validity of the depressive mood scale by means of the corresponding scale in the SCL-90-R. When the SCL-90-R was given to both groups, significant differences could be observed between the patients and the controls on the scales for somatisation, depressive mood, anxiety, phobias and psychoticism. Moreover, patients with chronic pain had higher scores on the scales for phobias and the global marker of "positive symptom total" (PST) than patients with acute back pain. On the scales for somatisation and insecurity during social contacts, women reported higher levels of psychological distress than men. Age-related differences were not observed. The depressive mood scale of the ERSS appears to be valid. With the SCL-90-R we could demonstrate significant differences between patients with acute and chronic pain, and between the sexes. No differences were found in the age-group comparison. In patients with low back pain, psychological parameters have to be taken into account in any comprehensive concept of conservative treatment.