Abstract
Background
Chronic pain in all its forms and the accompanying level of disability is a healthcare crisis that reaches epidemic proportions and is considered a world level crisis. Chronic non-specific low back pain contributes a significant proportion of chronic pain. Specific psychosocial factors and their influence on reported disability in a chronic non-specific low back pain (CNLBP) population was researched.
Methods
Psychosocial factors examined include fear, catastrophizing, depression, and pain self-efficacy. This cross-sectional correlational study examined the mediating role between pain self-efficacy and the specific psychosocial factors with reported disability. The study included 90 participants with CNLBP between 20 and 60 years of age. Participants completed the Fear Avoidance Belief Questionnaire, The Pain Catastrophizing Scale, The Patient Health Questionnaire-9, The Pain Self-Efficacy Questionnaire, and The Lumbar Oswestry Disability Index to measure fear of physical activity, pain catastrophizing, depression, pain self-efficacy, and reported disability, respectively. The study used multivariate regression and mediation analyses.
Results
The principal finding of the study was a strong inverse relationship between pain self-efficacy and reported disability. Further, pain self-efficacy was considered a statistic mediator for all psychosocial factors investigated within this data set. Pain self-efficacy was strongly considered to have a mediating role between reported fear of physical activity and disability, reported pain catastrophizing and disability, and reported depression and disability. Additionally, adjusting for age and reported pain levels proved to be statistically significant, and it did not alter the role of pain self-efficacy.
Conclusion
The results identified that pain self-efficacy had a mediating role in the relationship between the specific psychosocial factors of fear, catastrophizing, and depression and reported disability. Pain self-efficacy plays a more significant role in the relationships between specific psychosocial factors and reported disability with CNLBP than previously considered.
The Moderating Role of Self-Efficacy on the Relationship Between Alexithymia and Severity of Pain in Chronic Pain Patients
