ABSTRACT
Chronic low back pain is a complex condition produced by multiple factors. There are small researches about the frequency of Psychiatric disorders in discal hernia in Iran. This study investigated the psychological aspects of low back pain in a group of patients. The aim of this study is to evaluate the frequency level of psychiatric symptoms in patients with discal hernia. This research is a descriptive and cross sectional study. The psychological aspects were evaluated by using the Persian version of symptoms checklist-90-Revised [SCL-90-R]. The evaluation was carried out on 40-patients in the neurosurgery wards of the hospitals related to Islamic Azad University of Mashhad. The patients were diagnosed as suffering from lumbar discal herniation. Most of the patients were complaining about severe and chronic pains. The global index of the illness in our research was 1.09 and the most common disorders were found to be paranoid ideation and depression. The relation between pain severity and most common scores of the subscales of SCL-90-R is assessed. it showed higher association of paranoid ideation with 3, 4-5, 7-9, 10 level of pain and obsession and compulsion with score of 6. Patients had higher scores in all scales of the SCL-90-R. This research showed that the frequency of psychiatric symptoms in patients with lumbar discal herniation and low back pain is more than the general population of Iran