Fifty percent of the general population believe that lower back pain means that the back is damaged. Around ninety percent believe that ignoring pain can damage the back, and seventy percent believe there is ongoing weakness in the back following an episode of low back pain (LBP).
What people believe and do about their LBP strongly influences how long the pain will last and how disabled they will be by it. Fear-avoidance beliefs are significantly associated with the experience of pain, especially when the pain becomes persistent in nature.
The fear-avoidance model has been proposed to help us understand how interpreting the low back pain experience as threatening can lead to pain-related fear and fear of movement.
When we experience pain, we attempt to make sense of it by forming a cognitive ‘representation’ of the pain.
We ask ourselves:
What is this pain?
What caused this pain?
What might be the consequences of this pain?
How can I control this pain?
How long will this pain last?
These five belief dimensions are based on personal, social, and cultural contexts. They are constantly updated by information from the media, friends, clinicians, and our perception of how the pain feels at any given point in time. This ‘representation’ will then influence what we do about the pain.
There are many unhelpful thoughts, and recognizing them is the first step towards changing them. Please discuss these with your health coaches if you recognize any of them.
MSK-0034 Rev A