Selected Aspects of Mental Health of Elderly Patients with Chronic Back Pain Treated in Primary Care Centers

BACKGROUND: Improvement of the effectiveness and efficiency of chronic back pain therapy is a continuing challenge on an international scale. The aim of the present study was to tentatively assess mental health of patients with chronic back pain treated in primary care centers. MATERIAL/METHODS: The study enrolled 100 persons over 50 years of age. The back pain group consisted of 53 patients with chronic back pain and the control group consisted of 47 pain-free persons. The assessment of mental health used a Polish version of the international Goldberger’s General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28). ANOVA (1- and 2-factor) analysis of variance, Tukey’s test, and Pearson’s simple correlation were used to analyze the significance of differences, with the significance level set at α=0.05. RESULTS: All patients with chronic back pain, regardless of their age and gender, displayed poorer mental well-being compared to the control group: their overall score was higher by over 7 points than in persons without back pain (F(1.96)=14.8; p<0.001). Men with back pain were significantly more susceptible to depression than women (F(2.96)=5.5; p<0.05), compared to the control group. The duration of back pain also showed a significant (p<0.05) direct correlation with the overall mental health score from the questionnaire. Mental health was considerably poorer among patients occasionally (p<0.001) and regularly (p<0.05) consuming analgesics than among persons who did not do so. CONCLUSIONS: The study revealed that mental health was markedly poorer in patients with chronic back pain than in healthy controls. A preliminary assessment of aspects of mental health should be given more attention in the rehabilitation of patients with chronic back pain treated in primary care center outpatient clinics.