cognitive and emotional factors effective on chronic low back pain in women: explanation the role of fear-avoidance believes, pain catastrophizing and anxiety

aim and background: pain is a complex experience involving psychological factors which results in functional disorder. this study aimed to analyze the correlation between cognitive and emotional factors with chronic low back pain among women in isfahan, iran. methods and materials: in this cross-sectional research, the target population included all women with chronic low back pain that referred to clinics and hospitals of isfahan during summer 2011. a total number of 50 women with chronic low back pain were selected by simple random sampling. instruments used in this research included a demographic questionnaire, the multidimensional pain inventory, the fear-avoidance beliefs inventory, the pain catastrophizing scale, and the hospital anxiety scale. the obtained data was analyzed by stepwise and hierarchical regression analysis and pearson's correlation coefficient. findings: pain was positively related with fear-avoidance beliefs, catastrophizing, and anxiety. the results of stepwise regression showed that fear-avoidance beliefs and catastrophizing explained 45.6% of the variance of the pain. in addition, moderated hierarchical regression analysis revealed that job had a moderating effect on the relationship between anxiety and pain. conclusions: chronic low back pain can be predicted by fear-avoidance beliefs and catastrophizing. moreover, decreasing professional stress would reduce the overall anxiety and thus low back pain among women.