Coping of patients with back surgery--psychosocial aspects
Valach, L.; Augustiny, K.F.; Dvorak, J.; Blaser, A.; Fuhrimann, P.; Tschaggelar, W.; Heim, E.
Psychotherapie Psychosomatik Medizinische Psychologie 38(1): 28-36
1988
ISSN/ISBN: 0937-2032 PMID: 3363084 Document Number: 310684
We proposed that operated patients without complaints, patients with complaints and pensioned patients with complaints differ in their psychosocial situation. Thus the first group show the best and the third the worst psychosocial condition. A sample of 135 patients after disc surgery was chosen at random from the patient population (n = 435) responding to a questionnaire (9-19 years post operation). The patients were divided into three groups: no pain (n = 51), pain no pension (n = 40), pain and a disability pension (n = 44). All had attended a psychosocial screening. They filled in the MMPI and were interviewed on some aspects of their social life, and reported on their coping modes utilised in order to subdue their low back complaints before or after the operation. Independently from the preoperative low back pain condition and immediate postoperative results, the operated patients showed several years after the operation traceable differences in several psychosocial aspects. The patients with complaints, mainly those receiving a pension, were more psychologically conspicuous and showed more psychopathological features as monitored on MMPI than the patients without complaints. They also reported substantially less satisfactory occupational, family and social life than the patients considered to be complaint free. Finally, they also differed in their modes of coping with their back problems.