Big Five Personality Traits and Disabling Chronic Low Back Pain: Association with Fear-Avoidance, Anxious and Depressive Moods.

Patients with disabling chronic low back pain show personality characteristics that deviate significantly from the normal population norms but do not reach maladaptive forms of personality disorders. Clinicians would benefit from assessing patients' personality traits to address protective and risk factors for psychological distress, particularly in difficult-to-treat, highly disabled low back pain patients.