The use of the low back and the dorsal scales in the identification of functional low back patients.

Scores from the Low Back (Lb) and the Dorsal (DOR) scales of 20 patients with functional low back pain, 20 patients with functional gastrointestinal pain, and 20 psychoneurotic patients were compared. Among the various proposed cut-off scores, the Lb score of 11 yielded the highest rate (75%) of correct identification of Low Back patients and a hit rate similar to those reported in previous studies. However, it was noted that this 75% hit rate did not achieve statistical significance. Furthermore, the data indicated that neither the Lb nor the DOR scales could differentiate the Low Back patients from other psychosomatic and psychiatric patients and suggested that these two scales should be used with extreme caution by clinicians.