Anxiety sensitivity and fatigue severity among adults with chronic low back pain

ABSTRACT

Background

The combined impact of chronic low back pain (CLBP) and fatigue severity is associated with increased burden and worsened symptoms. Understanding factors that may contribute to and maintain fatigue severity among individuals with CLBP is needed to isolate intervention modalities.

Methods

The current study sought to investigate the role of anxiety sensitivity (AS) in terms of fatigue severity among 1,663 adults (70.0% female, M_age = 44.5 years, SD = 11.87) with current mild to severe CLBP as well as a subset of the sample with clinically significant fatigue (n = 778).

Results

Results indicated AS was a positively and statistically significant predictor of fatigue severity among the entire sample and the subset of the sample with clinically significant fatigue.

Conclusions

These cross-sectional data highlight the potential promise of AS as an underrecognized cognitive vulnerability for greater fatigue severity among those with CLBP.

KEYWORDS:

• Fatigue severity
• chronic low back pain
• Anxiety sensitivity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to the University of Houston under Award Number U54MD015946. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.