Journal of psychosomatic research
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Alexithymia, a lack of emotional awareness, was positively associated with self-reported low back pain (LBP) in cross-sectional studies. We assessed the association of alexithymia with 7.5-year incidence of LBP prospectively in a cohort study of 1207 San Francisco transit operators. ⋯ In contrast to previous cross-sectional positive associations between alexithymia and LBP, alexithymia is negatively associated with compensated LBP claims. We hypothesize that shame and reporting behavior may explain these inconsistent results.