Determination of their ideas about surgical treatment of patients with chronic low back pain

Determination of Their Ideas about Surgical Treatment of Patients with Chronic Low Back PainThis study was planned in order to determine the positive and negative opinions of the patients having chronic low back pain about the surgical treatment and, with the aid of these results, to get data necessary for informing the patients about the surgical treatment.This study was performed with 152 patients who were presented with the complaints of low back pain at the neurosurgery clinic of Ahmet Necdet Sezer Research and Teaching Hospital, Afyon Kocatepe University between July 2008 and March 2009. All the patients, who did not have any spinal surgery before, were willing to participate in the study and were suffering from low back pain more than three months as learnt by physical examination and diagnostic tests.Data were collected using a questionnaire including sociodemographic characters of the patients and their opinions about low back pain and its surgical treatment with Visual Analog Scale (VAS) and Oswestry Disability Index (ODI).Statistical analysis was performed by ANOVA, T-test, Ki-square, Kruskal Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests.As a result, while 40,8% of the patients were accepting the surgical treatment, 59,2% of them refused. It was found that 40,8% of them did not have any knowledge about the spinal surgery and 39,5% of them were afraid of to have paralysis.Despite 33,9% of the patients whom accepted the surgical treatment were afraid of having an operation, 54,8% of them stated that their pain would partly decrease and 62,9% of them stated that they would use lesser analgesics after the operation. They also expressed that they could do their daily activities (such as walking, standing and sitting) comfortably.61,6% of the patients who refused the surgical treatment were afraid of having an operation. 46,7% of them thought that their pain would not partly reduce and even become more severe. 13,3% of the patients stated that they didn?t accept the operation because of that they don?t trust their surgeon.Eventually, it should be informed in connection with the nature of the illness, administration of anesthesia, surgical procedure and postoperative period without increase the anxiety to the patients whom were planned to undergo on operation.Key words: Chronic low back pain, Conservative treatment, Low back pain, Opinion of the patient, Surgical treatment.