New study reveals link between depression and back pain
A new University of Sydney study, published in Arthritis Care and Research, has revealed that people with depression are 60% more likely to develop low back pain during their lifetime.
It is known that patients can often suffer from the two conditions, but this is said to be the first study to review all relevant research in the field and show that depression may actually trigger back pain.
Researchers from the university analysed data from 11 international studies, including a total of 23,109 participants who were not currently experiencing back pain. The study found that people with symptoms of depression had a much higher risk of developing low back pain in the future, compared to those showing no signs of depression.
The study went on to suggest that the risk of low back pain also increased in patients with more severe levels of depression, and was not impacted by whether depression was self-reported or clinically diagnosed.
The findings suggest that better outcomes could be achieved if depression and back pain were treated simultaneously, but that this would require health professionals from different fields to work together more closely.
Dr Paulo Ferreira from the University of Sydney’s Faculty of Health Sciences says that the research suggests that up to 61,200 cases of low back pain in Australia are partially attributed to depression.
“Low back pain is a debilitating condition, particularly when coupled with other health conditions, so I hope this discovery will lead to better treatment in the future,” he says.
“When patients come to us with both back pain and depression, their cases are much more complex. They don’t respond to treatment in the same way as patients who only experience back pain – they take much longer to recover and treatment can be expensive.”
In other studies, it has been estimated that up to 48% of people with back pain experience symptoms of depression, although currently scientists cannot agree on the cause.
Lead study author, physiotherapist Marina Pinheiro, acknowledges that the current study could not account for potential influences such as genetics and shared environmental factors and that further research was needed to explore the causal relationship between the two conditions.
“While this study tells us there is definitely a link between depression and back pain, it doesn’t tell us why,” she says.
“It could be because people with depression often have lower levels of physical activity and poor sleep, or due to issues with neurotransmitters which impact both mood and pain thresholds.”
Further studies, carried out by the research team, will look into the impact of genetics, with their research on twins suggesting some people may be genetically pre-disposed to both conditions.
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