Mert A, Frunt T and Wurff vd P.

Dutch Society for Rehabilitation Physicians (VRA) annual congress 2010.

The association between VAS and TSK compared with a performance test on the CAREN system in Chronic Low Back Pain (CLBP) patients.

Introduction: Pain related fear and pain intensity have been identified as factors negatively influencing performance tasks in CLBP patients. Aim: To analyze the relationship between pain intensity (VAS scale) and pain related fear (TSK) compared to a performance test on the CAREN system. Methods: Fifty-five consecutive patients with chronic low back pain who visit our clinic from Jan 2009 to March 2009 were included in this study. In a cross sectional observation study pain related fear was defined as the score on the Tampa Scale of Kinesiophobia (TSK) and pain intensity on a Visual Analogue Scale (VAS). The performance task on the CAREN system was especially developed for this study and consisted of a boat scenery with various obstacles to evoke lumbar movements and measured by time registration. Pearson product moment correlations were calculated to express linear associations between VAS and TSK compared to the performance test on the CAREN system. When differences were significant a ROC curve was constructed. Results: For the VAS score just a score of r = -.13 (not significant) was achieved. For the TSK only with a cutoff point of 42 we noticed that Pearson’s r = .37 (significant) The area under the ROC curve revealed only a score of 0.593 indicating no benefit from the performance task above the TSK.

Conclusion: In this study we could not establish any relationship between the VAS score and the performance task on the CAREN system. For the TSK only above a cut-off point of 42 points a poor relationship was determined.