Differences of nature of disease, socioeconomic and psychological factors in chronic low back pain patients between Thailand and Germany

Objectives To study the differences of nature of disease, socioeconomic status and psychological factors in chronic low back pain (LBP) patients between Thailand and Germany. Study design Cross-sectional analytic study. Setting Out patient clinic, department of rehabilitation medicine, King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital, Thailand and Department of Orthopedics & PMR demographic data, socioeconomic status, nature of disease i.e. Numerical Rating Scale (NRS), Pain Disability Index (PDI), etc. and psychological factors (Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale: CES-D). The data was analyzed by using statistic program. Results Mean age of both Thai and German was 47.7 ± 11.7 years old. Majority was female, married, white collar and has LBP duration for more than 3 years. Comparison between Thai and German, the average and maximal NRS were not significantly different. However, German patients had significantly higher than Thai patients in PDI (median 26 and 10, respectively, P = 0.00) and CES-D total scores (median 17 and 4, respectively, P = 0.00). Conclusion Despite the non-significant difference in LBP severity, there were the differences among Thai and German patients. German patients had more depressive symptom and pain related impairment than Thai patients.