Comparison of pain, functioning, coping, and psychological distress in patients with chronic low back pain evaluated for spinal cord stimulator implant or behavioral pain management.

Objective: Subgroups of patients with chronic low back pain may exhibit differences in self-reported measures of pain, functioning, coping, and psychological distress. The present study compared subgroups of patients with chronic low back pain referred either for pre-spinal cord stimulator (SCS) psychological evaluations or for behavioral pain management (BPM).

Design: Measures from comprehensive pain, functioning, and psychological assessments were compared using multivariate ancova.