Depression And Back Pain

Main Category: Back Pain
Also Included In: Depression
Article Date: 08 Mar 2004 - 0:00 PDT


If you are depressed your disabling back-pain is twice as likely to come back.

A new study was carried out at the University of Alberta, Canada.

Despite earlier controversies regarding depression and back pain, it seems this study proves there is a clear relationship.

Linda J. Carroll, PhD, team leader said 'Our results provide evidence that depression is an important and independent risk factor for troublesome pain. Those with both back pain and depression use twice the sick days and incur twice the health care costs as those with either problem separately.'

You can read about this study in the journal Pain.

Researchers examined data on 790 patients who had had back pain but did not have it at the time of the study. The patients were randomly selected.

All the patients were then followed up 6 months and 12 months later to see if the pain had come back and also to see if they were depressed.

Researchers found that the chicken and egg question here works both ways. Patients with back pain can get depression because of it, and patients with depression can get back pain because of the depression.

Carroll said 'Both conditions can come and go and both are very common. In fact, only 20 percent of the population has not experienced any neck or low back pain in the past six months. So it's important to try to deal with these conditions before they become troublesome and lead to a vicious cycle.'

They found people react to back pain in two ways. They either react passively, avoid everything which can make them feel the pain. These people also seek medication. The other type attacks the pain actively by doing exercise or staying busy.

Carroll said 'We're wondering if depression leads people to cope passively when they experience the kinds of mild pain episodes that most of us are periodically subjected to. This in turn may increase the likelihood that pain will become a problem in someone's life.'

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