Quality of Well-Being Scale and Chronic Low Back Pain

Michael T. Smith, Timothy P. Carmody, Michelle Sun Smith

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Scopus citations

Abstract

Outcome measures that assess quality of life for use in health policy decisions need to be investigated in chronic pain patients. In the present study, the validity of the Quality of Well-Being Scale (QWB) was evaluated on 67 adult chronic low back pain (CLBP) patients who were enrolled in a 12-week multidisciplinary pain treatment program. Participants completed the QWB, a battery of pain measures, a behavioral observation task, and a medical exam. The findings indicated that CLBP patients have a low level of functioning or quality of life (M = .567, SD = .08) compared with persons with life-threatening diseases. The QWB score was significantly correlated with observational measures of pain behavior and pain-related coping strategies. Multivariate analysis indicated that interference in daily activities, distorted ambulation, affective distress, pain duration, and guarding were the most significant predictors of quality of well-being (multiple R = .84, p < .0001). Patients with medically incongruent physical signs had significantly lower QWB scores than patients with congruent signs. Overall, the data supported the validity of the QWB in a sample of CLBP patients.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)175-184
Number of pages10
JournalJournal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings
Volume7
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 2000
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Chronic low back pain
  • Pain assessment
  • Quality of Well-Being Scale
  • Quality of life

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Clinical Psychology

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