Quality of well-being scale and chronic low back pain

Outcome measures that assess quality of life for use in health policy decis ions need to be investigated in chronic pain patients. In the present study , the validity of the Quality of Well-Being Scale (QWB) was evaluated on 67 adult chronic low back pain (CLBP) patients who were enrolled in a 12-week multidisciplinary pain treatment program. Participants completed the QWB, a battery of pain measures, a behavioral observation task, and a medical ex am. The findings indicated that CLBP patients have a low level of functioni ng or quality of life (M = .567, SD =.08) compared with persons with life-t hreatening diseases. The QWB score was significantly correlated with observ ational measures of pain behavior and pain-related coping strategies. Multi variate analysis indicated that interference in daily activities, distorted ambulation, affective distress, pain duration, and guarding were the most significant predictors of quality of well-being (multiple R = .84, p <.0001 ). Patients with medically incongruent physical signs had significantly low er QWB scores than patients with congruent signs. Overall, the data support ed the validity of the QWB in a sample of CLBP patients.