Swiss medical weekly
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Swiss medical weekly · Jan 1989
Comparative Study[Chronic backache in migrant workers from Mediterranean countries in comparison to central European patients: demographic and psychosocial aspects].
The standardized interviews of 26 chronic back pain patients from central Europe (Switzerland, Germany, Poland) were compared with those of 28 patients from Mediterranean countries (Italy, Spain, Yugoslavia, Turkey), all of whom had been referred for participation in an integrated treatment program for chronic back pain. The two samples differed significantly in most of the psychosocial aspects studied. Patients from Mediterranean countries had a significantly lower level of education and were mostly employed as unskilled workers, while patients from central Europe were mostly housewives or skilled workers with higher levels of education. ⋯ Unskilled workers are significantly overrepresented in the latter segment of the adult working population of the study area (city of Basel, Switzerland). This overrepresentation is similar to that in our patient sample. The special situation of foreign workers from Mediterranean countries seems to account for their high incidence of chronic intractable back pain.