Faculty Bibliography

This chapter has reviewed research on psychological and social factors associated with the onset and progression of low back pain. From this review it can be concluded that psychosocial traits appear to be important contributors to the course of pain and disability though methodologically well-designed longitudinal studies are rare. For this reason it is difficult to assess the relative importance of, for example, psychological distress compared with work stress. Furthermore, the mechanisms by which specific variables effect back pain remain unknown. The answer, no doubt, lies in longitudinal studies which employ multicausal models. It has been noted the psychosocial treatments which have proven effective for chronic pain populations are rarely assessed with acute pain patients. Some problems are the inaccessibility of acute back pain sufferers to psychologists, the difficulty of isolating the effect of one component of a multidisciplinary programme and the lack of uniform practice of psychosocial techniques. None the less, programmes which include psychosocial interventions appear to have superior results to those which do not. Since these techniques are often simple and inexpensive to include they should be incorporated into all treatment programmes where the potential for chronic pain syndrome exists. Gaps and flaws in current research methodologies have been identified and suggestions for future investigations have been proposed. In addition we have attempted to provide some practical guidelines for health care professionals to help them identify salient psychosocial issues which may effect the course of their patient's treatment. Recommendations for assessment and referral are also provided

Seventy-two female idiopathic scoliosis patients, ages 12 to 16, who were receiving either no treatment/observation, the Scolitron, a brace, or who had undergone surgery were tested to determine the psychological impact of scoliosis. Mothers of the patients also served as subjects. A normal group of adolescents served as control subjects. Results showed that all groups were less likely to feel that their health status was due to chance than the controls. No other psychological differences were found between treatment groups, which contradicts previous reports of greater psychological distress among brace patients as compared with Scolitron (TM) patients. It was found that mothers' attitudes toward their children's illnesses were strongly and positively related to their children's attitudes toward their illnesses, and that these attitudes were strongly correlated with psychological distress. These findings underscore the need to consider the parent-child relationship when treating the adolescent patient

This retrospective study of lateral electrical surface stimulation (LESS) treatment for patients with progressive idiopathic scoliosis was performed to document patient compliance in the standard electrical stimulation program and to gain objective data to perform a relative comparison of electrical stimulation and bracing compliance. Forty mothers of adolescent female patients participating in the electrical stimulation program of one of the authors (NK) were interviewed confidentially by an independent observer (SW). Patients whose compliance was rated good or total were thought to have acceptable compliance rates. Overall, 50% showed good or total compliance, 10% fair, 5% poor, and 35% failures. It appeared that the failures tended to exaggerate their symptoms and use 'skin irritation' as an excuse to discontinue treatment. The longer patients used the LESS (scolitron) device, the more compliant they became (P less than 0.0). This is opposite to the findings about brace compliance. Confidence of the mother in the device showed a positive correlation (P less than 0.008) with compliance, and a mother's concern of how others would react to her child's scoliosis had a negative correlation (P less than 0.003). From the results of this study, overall compliance appears to be somewhat better for electrical stimulation programs than for bracing programs. However, the high failure rate was both disappointing and surprising