The Relationship between Psychological Dimensions of Negative Mood, Fear of Pain and Movement Disability in patients with Spinal Chronic Pain

The goal of this study was to examine the role of stress, anxiety and depression and fear of pain on anticipating the movement disability in patients with spinal cord chronic pain. The sample in the research included of 53 persons (41 women, 12 men) with spinal cord chronic pain (back pain) who were approached and referred over the 3 months to a physiotherapy clinic and briefed about the research and voluntarily agreed to participate in the study. Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS), Pain Disability Questionnaire (PDQ), Pain Anxiety Symptom Scale (PASS) and Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia (TSK) were completed by participants. The obtained data in the research was examined by statistical method of correlation coefficients and multiple regressions. The findings of this study shown that from the subscales of DASS, depression had the highest correlation with movement disability. Also the subscales of PASS, particularly dimension of escape/avoidance had the highest positive and significant correlation with movement disability. The findings showed that depression explained %28 and escape/avoidance explained %36 of the variance of movement disability. Although pain might be considered as a physical health problem primarily, however, psychological components including depression, anxiety, stress and fear of movement could play a crucial role at least in maintenance of pain that needs to be considered in rehabilitation interventions.