Introduction: Chronic low back pain may cause changes of the affect and personality, being unique, mostly subjective experience, depending upon the complex interaction of cognition, emotions, interpersonal contacts at both individual and cultural levels.
Objective: The aim of our study was to make a comparative analysis of personality variables such as: neuroticism, depression and anxiety developed by elderly patients with low back pain and patients with depressive anxious syndrome in order to establish the relationship between somatic and cognitive components of depression between the two groups of patients. Another objective of our study was related with testing the efficiency of self rating inventories and scales for the differential diagnosis of the two groups of patients.
Materials and Methods: Our study has been done on 90 female patients aged between 55-78 years old, pathology divided into two groups of 45 patients each: group A with low back pain (admitted in Rehabilitation Clinic, University Hospital) and group B with depressive anxious syndrome. (University Hospital Ambulatory). The following tests have been given to all subjects: Beck depression inventory (BDI), Cattell anxiety inventory (CAI), Eysenck depression inventory (EDI)-neuroticism rating scale. The following variables were studied: anxiety overall, overt and masked, neuroticism, anxiety factors: self image adjustment (Q3), ego strength failure©, tendencies of apprehension (L), feeling of guilt(0), inner strain (Q4), depression overall, somatic and cognitive.
Results: The elderly female with depressive anxiety had higher mean scores for all the variables excepting somatic depression which aquired higher score in low back pain patients. The correlation between the two samples emphasize a close positive correlation between all personality variables under study: depression, neuroticism, anxiety and its factors.
Conclusion: The most appropiate and sensitive tools for the differential diagnosis of the patients with depressive anxiety and chronic low back pain are: the neuroticism rating scale of Eysenck depression inventory, the 0 and C factors of Cattell anxiety inventory, the entire Beck inventory, the cognitive depression rating scale of Beck inventory.
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