Introduction:

Chronic back pain is one of the principal causes of long term disability in middle age. Its consequences include decreased worker productivity and increased costs for affected individuals, their employers and society in general.

Objective:

Determine coping strategies, characteristics of pain including psychological aspects, and quality of life in patients with chronic back pain.

Materials and methods:

50 patients from three institutions providing physiotherapy services in the city of Sincelejo, were surveyed. A non-experimental descriptive cross type design was used; each participant underwent treatment with a pain characteristic assessment interview, along with the visual analog scale (VAS), the Coping Strategies Questionnaire (QSC) and the Quality of Life Questionnaire Euroqol (EQ5D2).

Results:

Most patients had a diagnosis of cervicalgia and low back pain. The perceived intensity of pain was generally moderate. The most frequently used coping strategies was praying and hoping and the least used was catastrophizing. Patients reported a high level of quality of life in terms of self-care and mobility scales. In addition, statistically significant relationships between current pain intensity and coping strategy to ignore it (positive) and between duration of pain and the coping strategy consistent of minimizing pain (negative) were established.

Conclusions:

The findings suggest that the use of strategies to ignore the pain increases with the intensity of the pain and reduces with longer duration. Additionally, pain perception is sensitive to age and experiences.

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