The Relationship between Alexithymia and Functional Disability Among IT Professionals with Chronic Low Back Pain

Abstract

Background: Chronic low back pain is an exceptionally predominant and exorbitant musculoskeletal pain syndrome. Low Back Pain is the primary cause of movement restriction and records for 33% of all worker’s compensation claims. Utilizing the customary characterization framework, Low back pain is additionally arranged by its duration of onset like acute (<6 weeks), sub-acute (6 weeks-12 weeks), and chronic (>12 weeks). Usually, people who have back pain experience acute occurrence of pain, which heals on their own in roughly 3 months. Individuals with alexithymia will in general show lower empathy with others’ beliefs, feelings, and desires maybe in light of their absence of information on their own enthusiastic experience. This absence of sympathy may likewise add to the higher rates of relational issues reported by people with alexithymia. Oswestry Low Back Pain Disability questionnaire is an important tool to evaluate functional disability. Therefore, in this study, the association between alexithymia and functional disability in chronic low back pain was discussed. Aim: The study aims to evaluate the correlation between alexithymia and functional disability among IT professionals with chronic low back pain. Materials and Methods: This study involves 246 IT professionals between ages 25-50 years of male and female genders in Bangalore were taken based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. The online survey was performed by using google forms. Outcome Measures: Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire (NMQ), Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), and Oswestry Low Back Pain Disability Questionnaire (ODI) were used. Result: A POSITIVE correlation is observed in both cases where the relationship is very weak. T-test for dependent means between those with CLBP and without CLBP the result implies that there is a significant difference between the individuals with CLBP and without CLBP in both the tests. The t-value of alexithymia shows 15.6960 and Oswestry shows -4.7784. the p-value for alexithymia is 0.001 which is significant and the p-value for Oswestry is <0.00001 which is significant. Conclusion: There is a significant difference between alexithymia and functional disability among individuals with CLBP and without CLBP. There is a positive correlation seen in CLBP and without low back pain.