Pain drawing as a screening tool for anxiety, depression and reduced health-related quality of life in back pain patients: A cohort study

This study analysed pain drawings to examine whether pain drawing is suitable as a screening tool for signs of anxiety, depression or reduced quality of life, as the detection of these symptoms is essential for successful treatment. MethodsPain drawings of 219 patients with lower back pain were evaluated retrospectively. Pain drawings are a schematic drawing of a human being. Six variables of the pain drawing were analysed. Subscales of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and the Mental Component Summary (MCS) of the Short Form 12 (SF-12) were used to measure anxiety, depression and quality of life, respectively. Descriptive statistics, uni- and multivariate linear regression analyses and analysis of variance were performed. Logistic regression analyses were conducted for suitable variables. ResultsWe revealed significant positive correlations between the variables "filled body surface" and "number of pain sites" and the anxiety (HADS-A) and depression subscales (HADS-D) of the HADS (p
Source: PLoS One - Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Source Type: research