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Abstract
Acupuncture treatment of chronic low back pain was studied in a placebo-controlled
double-blind crossover trial completed by 77 patients. The patients had significantly
increased depression, neuroticism, and hypochondriasis scores. Initial pain levels
correlated with state-anxiety, depression, pain duration, and abnormal illness behavior
measures, as well as with the intake of psychotropic but not analgesic medication.
Overall reduction in pain score was 26 percent for acupuncture and 22 percent for
placebo treatment; the difference was not significant (p > 0.6). Analgesic drug intake
was reduced to a similar extent in both groups. During the first phase of treatment,
patients receiving acupuncture had a greater but not significantly different reduction
in pain rating scores compared with those receiving placebo (t = 0.52; p > 0.6). This
group showed significantly lower pain scores (p < 0.05) in the second phase of the
trial while receiving placebo treatment. Overall reduction in individual patient's
pain score was best predicted by initial pain severity (r = 0.43; p < 0.001) and psychotropic
drug intake (r = 0.37; p < 0.001). None of the variables tested predicted which patients
would specifically respond to acupuncture or placebo.
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Article info
Footnotes
☆This work was supported by grant 74/9158 from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia. Preliminary reports of this study were presented at the Second World Congress on Pain, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 1978, and at the Scientific Meeting of the Australasian Association of Neurologists, Hobart, Australia, 1978.
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Copyright
© 1983 Published by Elsevier Inc.
