Healthcare utilization of back pain patients: results of a claims data analysis

Figures & data

Table 1.  ICD 10 codes relevant for definition of back pain types.

Back pain type	ICD-10
(Other) specific back pain	M43	Other deforming dorsopathies
	M45	Ankylosing spondylitis
	M46	Other inflammatory spondylopathies
	M48	Other spondylopathies
	M49	Spondylopathies in diseases classified elsewhere
	M81	Osteoporosis without pathological fracture
	M82	Osteoporosis in diseases classified elsewhere
Pain in spinal disk disorders	M50	Cervical disk disorders
	M51	Other intervertebral disk disorders
Non-specific back pain	M47	Spondylosis
	M53	Other dorsopathies, not elsewhere classified
	M54	Dorsalgia

Table 2.  ICD 10 codes for psychiatric comorbidities relevant for defining a risk for chronic back pain.

F32.0	Depressive episode
F33.0	Recurrent depressive disorder, current episode
F34.1	Dysthymia
F34.8	Other persistent mood (affective) disorders
F34.9	Persistent mood (affective) disorder, unspecified
F38	Other mood (affective) disorders
F41.2	Mixed anxiety and depressive disorder
F45.4	Persistent somatoform pain disorder
F48.0	Neurasthenia
F43.2	Adjustment disorders
F54	Psychological and behavioural factors associated with disorders or diseases classified elsewhere
F62.8	Other enduring personality changes

Table 3.  Study population.

	(Other) specific back pain	Pain in spinal disk disorders	Non- specific back pain
Beneficiaries (n) [%]	211,116 [22.4]	195,712 [20.8]	534,272 [56.8]
Women (%)	82.2	67.6	66.1
Mean age (years) [SD]	68 [14.5]	56 [13.7]	49 [17.7]
Age 0–54 (%)	15.2	46.4	60.3
Age 55–65 (%)	20.3	28.2	19.1
Age 66 and above (%)	64.5	25.4	20.6
Working population (%)	17.8	47.8	52.5

All numbers are given in column percentages if not indicated otherwise. SD = Standard Deviation.

Table 4.  Pain related comorbidities in three back pain types (hierarchical order).

Pain-related comorbity		(Other) specific back pain (n = 211,216)	Pain in spinal disk disorders (n = 195,712)	Non-specific back pain (n = 534,272)
1	Cancer	–	–	–
2	(Other) specific back pain	100%	–	–
3	Pain due to vertebral disk disease	31%	100%	–
4	Pain due to arthrosis or arthritis	75%	40%	–
5	Pain after traumatic fractures	9%	2%	–
6	Pain in multimorbid, high-maintenance patients	5%	1%	–
7	Neuropathic pain	28%	28%	–
8	Headache	17%	22%	–
9	Non-specific back pain	88%	100%	100%

Table 5.  Healthcare utilization of back pain patients, 2006.

	(Other) specific back pain (n = 211,116)				Pain in spinal disk disorders (n = 195,712)				Non-specific pain (n = 534,272)
	Mean	SD	lower CI (95%)	upper CI (95%)	Mean	SD	lower CI (95%)	upper CI (95%)	Mean	SD	lower CI (95%)	upper CI (95%)
Total utilization
Outpatient visits (n)	11.4	6.25	11.39	11.44	10.1	5.85	10.07	10.12	6.5	4.10	6.54	6.56
In-hospital (days)	5.15	13.41	5.09	5.21	2.73	9.46	2.69	2.78	1.41	7.44	1.39	1.43
Work disability (days)	20.8	36.74	20.60	20.91	20.9	35.14	20.75	21.06	10.2	20.25	10.18	10.29
Direct costs (Euro)	3805	6213.1	3778	3831	2445	4734.7	2424	2466	1280	3044.2	1272	1289
Pain-related utilization
Outpatient visits (number)	2.9	2.05	2.89	2.91	2.2	1.65	2.24	2.25	1.8	1.29	1.75	1.76
In-hospital (days)	0.36	3.09	0.34	0.37	0.35	2.28	0.34	0.36	0.02	0.57	0.01	0.02
Work disability (days)	3.5	13.58	3.48	3.59	6.1	18.94	6.04	6.21	1.5	5.67	1.52	1.55
Direct costs (Euro)	907	1931.4	899	915	718	1740.2	710	726	265	795.3	263	267

All figures are reported in mean values, standard deviation, and 95% confidence intervals over the selected groups of patients over the time period of 1 year (2006).

Figures 1–8.  Data from ‘Versorgungsatlas Schmerz’16. 95% Confidence Intervals are indicated as vertical lines. Mean values across the three states from acute to chronic pain are indicated as horizontal lines. The shading of the bars in each back pain type has the following meaning: bright = without surrogate markers for chronic pain, middle = with surrogate markers for risk of future chronic pain, dark = with surrogate markers for chronic pain.

Grünenthal GmbH (Ed.). Versorgungsatlas Schmerz [factbook on pain], Velbrück: Weilerswist, ISBN978-3-942393-95-9

 Google Scholar