• K von Korn, M Richter, and H von Piekartz.
• Fakultät Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften, Hochschule Osnabrück, Caprivistr. 30, 49076, Osnabrück, Deutschland.
• Schmerz. 2014 Aug 1; 28 (4): 391-7.

BackgroundPersistent chronic pain leads to cortical changes in areas involved in the recognition of emotions. Wand et al. suggest a close correlation between the affective pain component and the extent to which these changes occur. As a consequence, the emotion profile may be influenced and difficulties in emotional communication may arise.Materials And MethodsA total of 49 patients with chronic low back pain (CLBP) were classified as grade 1 + 2 or 3 + 4 using the Graded Chronic Pain Scale (GCPS) questionnaire. In all patients, the ability to recognize basic emotions coded through facial expression was assessed using the Facially Expressed Emotion Labeling (FEEL) test. Furthermore, the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-26 (TAS-26) was used to assess if the patients showed signs of alexithymia. Data of the GCPS grade 3 + 4 (n = 35) group were analyzed.ResultsFindings of the FEEL test indicate that the GCPS grade 3 + 4 group recognized the basic emotion 'surprise' significantly more often (p = 0.001) and showed a higher level of currently perceived anger than unaffected subjects. The TAS-26 showed that 28.5 % of the patients with CLBP were alexithym.ConclusionThe results suggest changes in the recognition of emotions and that patients with CLBP show signs of alexithymia. Further studies with larger sample sizes are required to confirm the detected trends.

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