Pre-injury emotional trauma and chronic back pain. An unexpected finding.

Abstract

A retrospective study investigated pre-injury emotional trauma in out-of-work, blue collar patients with chronic back pain (N = 27) who participated in a 30-hour workshop in which a wide range of cognitive skills was taught to help patients with rehabilitation and return them to work. This study identified categories of pre-injury emotional trauma, calculated summary statistics, and performed category comparisons. The categories of abandonment, emotional abuse, physical abuse, and sexual abuse emerged from the data. Frequencies and percentages in each category were calculated. Chi-square tests compared the differences in emotional trauma and gender. Statistically more patients reported abandonment and emotional abuse than physical and sexual abuse. There were no differences in trauma rates by gender. The results of the study revealed a high rate of pre-injury emotional trauma in patients with chronic back pain. Including pre-injury emotional trauma in psychologic evaluations of patients with chronic back pain and high psychologic test scores is recommended.