[Psychosocial factors in chronic back pain].

The evolution of the industrial era into the information society brought with it a dramatic increase in back pain. Epidemiological data are at odds with the former concept of somatic overload and degeneration as the underlying causes of back trouble. Personality, as well as psychosocial and socio-economic factors all impact on the evolution from acute to chronic back pain. It is suggested that the model of external causes and linear responses to explain back pain will be replaced by the holistic, nondeterministic complexity concept, i.e. multifactorial etiopathogenesis, multidimensional interactions, nonlinear causal pathways.