While people may think back pain is not completely selective in whom and more specifically which pocketbook it affects, a number of parameters may actually form the basis of the problem. A new German study, so-called 'Bottom-up', shows that gender, age, education and marital status may potentially affect the costs induced by back pain. For example, in just 12 months, the researchers found that more than two thirds of the German adult population suffers from back pain.

Christina Wenig and Bernd Schweikert of the Institute of Health Economics and Health Care Management of the Helmholtz Zentrum München - German Research Center for Environmental Health, along with researchers from the Institute for Community Medicine of the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt- Universität in Greifswald, evaluated how the socio-demographic variables of patients can influence the cost parameters of back pain.

Assessing these parameters gave the researchers the opportunity to identify the key factors of costs. It should be noted that their assessment also gave them the chance to explain the variability and distribution of these costs.

In addition, the German Back Pain Research Network questioned 9,267 Germans who took part in the study. The findings were estimated to include the population of people aged from 18 to 75, and will be published in a future edition of the European Journal of Pain.

The results showed that back pain actually generates a cost of €1,322 for each patient, each year. Of the total cost, 46% were direct costs, including expenses, owing to back pain treatment. Indirect costs, the researchers found, reached some 54%, and included production losses. The biggest costs were related to patients aged 50 years.

Other social factors that fuel costs, besides the benefits claimed by patients, include low education, unemployment and people who live on their own. The most obvious correlation for the research team was pain grade and costs. Prevention or therapy measures accounted for 9.7% of the expense costs. It should be noted that patients shelled out money to pay for treatment as well.

According to the researchers, overall costs generated by back pain in Germany stood at €48.9 billion, which represents around 2.2% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP).

In a nutshell, the researchers said their findings indicate that effective prevention programmes can play a major role in bringing down these costs, in both the public and private sectors. The potential application of these findings is that researchers can focus on specific research and that they can use the budget for new and improved medical strategies in a rational manner.

Helmholtz Zentrum Muenchen

Source: Community R&D Information Service (CORDIS)