Functional versus organic knee pain in adolescents

Abstract

Psychologic factors, usually assessed with the Min nesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, have been reported by various researchers as significant in cer tain groups of adult orthopaedic patients—most no tably those with low back pain. Much less is known about children and adolescents or other orthopaedic complaints. We did a pilot study to determine how significant nonorganic factors are in adolescents pre senting with knee pain and whether a brief screening protocol conducted in the waiting room can predict which adolescents do not have organic etiology for the knee pain. Twenty-eight consecutive adolescents were given the Junior-Senior High School Personality Questionnaire (HSPQ), and information on other vari ables was obtained prior to their first orthopaedic visit. Followup after six to eight months revealed that over a third of the patients had significant or predominant psychologic factors associated with the knee pain. The HSPQ and other individual variables were found, overall, to be of little help in differentiating between the functional and organic groups.