title: Affective and sensory dimensions of back pain.
abstract: Pain words used to communicate suffering were analyzed to identify specific dimensions of back pain. The words were obtained from a group of 131 patients suffering from back pain who described their discomfort on a standardized 87-item pain questionnaire. The results indicate that words descriptive of back pain are not associated in completely random ways. When patients complain of back pain, their report falls into 7 distinguishable patterns. The major pattern accounts for 38% of the variance and refers almost entirely to emotional discomfort. The second pattern accounts for 9% of the variance and is a mixed emotional and sensory factor. The remaining 5 patterns account for 29% of the variance and constitute an entirely sensory class of factors.
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000523:psychology*; D000368:Aged; D001416:Back Pain / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009619:Nociceptors / Q000503:physiopathology*