High Risk Acute and Chronic Low Back Pain
Psychosocial Differences Between High Risk Acute vs. Chronic Low Back Pain Patients
From: Pain Practice. 2008 Mar-Apr;8(2):91-7
The present study was designed to evaluate the relative degree and type of emotional distress in high risk acute low back pain subjects (defined as less than 3 months since initial injury) vs. high-risk chronic low back pain subjects (defined as greater than 3 months since initial injury). It is an extension of earlier findings that demonstrated the significant role that such emotional distress may play in the development of chronic low back pain disability if not appropriately treated in the acute phase. This work stems from a conceptual three-stage model, which characterizes the progression from acute to chronic pain.
Several psychosocial measures were administered that included information allowing for the classification of subjects as high-risk based upon an earlier developed screening algorithm. The ancova procedure in SPSS was used to compare groups, controlling for gender, ethnicity, and age. Results revealed that chronic low back pain subjects had higher rates of certain measures of emotional distress and depression relative to acute low back pain subjects.
These findings further support the importance of effectively managing emotional distress factors early, when treating musculoskeletal disorders such as low back pain.
