The Effectiveness of Mindfulness on Pain Complaints and Psychosomatic Problems in Women with Chronic Back Pain

This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of mindfulness on pain complaints and psychosomatic problems of women with chronic low back pain. The present study was a quasi-experimental study with a pre-test-post-test design with a control-experimental group. The study’s statistical population includes women aged 30 to 60 referring to Dr. Farkhani's physical medicine and rehabilitation clinics in Isfahan province. According to entry criteria, 60 women were selected based on the available sampling methods and a random selection, among which 30 people were in the experimental group and 30 were in the control group. The experimental group was exposed to mindfulness training during eight sessions of 90 to 120 minutes. Data were collected using McGill Pain Questionnaire (1997) to evaluate the level of pain complaints of the participants and Takata and Sakata's (2004) Psychosomatic Complaints Questionnaire to evaluate psychosomatic problems. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and univariate analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to analyze the data. The analysis results of covariance showed that mindfulness therapy (1992) was effective on the variable of pain complaints (p = 0.0001, f= 7.86) and patients' psychosomatic problems (p = 0.0001, f=12.11). The findings showed that mindfulness meditation training could significantly affect the psychosomatic problems of women with chronic low back pain.