Does smoking status affect multidisciplinary pain facility treatment outcome?
OBJECTIVES: Smoking may be a major problem in chronic low back pain (LBP) patients. The goal of this study was to determine whether smoking status affected multidisciplinary pain facility treatment outcome. DESIGN: As part of a grant study, chronic LBP patients identified themselves as either current smokers (N = 81) or current nonsmokers (N = 140), and were compared by chi-square for employment status at 1, 6, 12, and 24 months after multidisciplinary pain facility treatment. Smokers who were unemployed at each time interval were then compared with employed smokers for a large number of assessment scales and clinical variables of interest by chi-square or Student’s t-test. The significant independent variables from these analyses were then utilized in a logistic regression to determine predictors for smoker nonemployment. SETTING: Pain facility. RESULTS: Current smokers were less likely to be employed at each follow-up time point. Pain levels over the previous 24 hours predicted emplo
