Pain staging, gender, and rehabilitation outcome in chronic low back pain. A pilot study

Background. Current biopsychosocial models of the etiology and chronicity of back pain postulate a major impact of psychological factors in the process of back pain chronicity. Participants and methods. Effects of gender and pain staging on rehabilitation outcome were examined immediately after and 3 and 6 months after rehabilitation in 121 patients with chronic low back pain (43 women, 78 men; M=48 years; ICD-10 diagnoses M54.4/M54.5). Pain was staged using the Mainz Pain Staging System. Results. In the short and mid term, patients in stage I and women benefited from rehabilitation. Rehabilitation outcomes tended not to be improved for men in stage III. Conclusions. Results support the notion that rehabilitation outcome is significantly influenced by pain staging and gender. Thus, clinical-psychological and gender-specific interventions should be incorporated in future therapeutic regimens to increase the rehabilitation outcomes in patients with higher chronicity of back pain.