Characteristics of patients who attribute chronic pain to minor injury.

Eighty-four chronic low back pain (CLBP) patients were studied in order to determine whether personality differences existed between patients reporting a minor injury at work as the cause of their disability and ensuing insurance claims, and patients who did not. Twenty-three of the CLBP patients studied reported that their pain resulted from a accident at work. All the subjects underwent a variety of psychological and somatic tests. The results indicate that the "accident" patient group is characterized by specific psycho-dynamic personality patterns significantly different from the characteristics of the "non-accident" group. The characteristics of the patients in the "accident" group suggest that these patients tend to hold on to minor injuries, and that one possible reason for this might partly be related to the liberal insurance policies in Sweden.