2005 Volume 11 Issue 1 Pages 143-147
The purpose of this research was to investigate the actual situation and course of treatment of outpatients with low back pain. A self-describing questionnaire was obtained three times in total: at the first visit; after two weeks and after one year. Four hundred forty-nine subjects completed the questionnaire and 359 of them were used as subject for this research after excluding those whose descriptions were insufficient. Subjects included 160 men and 199 women, and their average age was 50.0 years. Regarding the painful region expressed on a map of the human body, 72 percent of the subjects had pain in the lumbar area, while 18% in the buttocks. About 80% of the subjects had history of low back pain, and about half of them reported possible causes for the low back pain. One hundred sixty-one subjects had history of being treated for low back pain and 60% of them had been treated at an orthopedic clinic. With regards to the final status for the low back pain obtained from outpatient records, 20% of 359 subjects reported improvement or disappearance of pain, though 11% had still some low back pain, 3% changed doctors and the situation was unclear in 237 subjects (66%). As a result of the questionnaire after 2 weeks, low back pain had disappeared in 19% and improved in 56%. At the last investigation, low back pain had disappeared in 34% of subjects, while 30% of them were still receiving treatment for their remaining low back pain.
