Evaluation of the therapeutic effect of oral gabapentin on the severity of acute low back pain

Acute low back pain is one of the most commoncomplaintsof the patients seeking medical advice. Nowadays various drugs are recommended for the treatment of this problem. Selection of appropriate medications with high efficacy and minimal side effects has always been a challenging issue in medical treatments. The present study was conducted to investigate the effect of oral gabapantin on pain intensity in patients with acute low back pain. This double-blind clinical trial study included 100 patients with acute low back pain who had referred to the treatment centers affiliated with Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences in 2011-2012.Using convenient sampling method the patients were randomly assigned to intervention (n=50) and control (n=50) groups. Intervention group received two 500 mg naproxen tablets and two100 mg gabapantin tablets/day and control group, received two 500 mg naproxen tabletsand two placebo tablets/ day. The patients were examined for pain intensity based on visual analogue scale and the rate of complications on the days of 0, 8, 15, and 30.Using SPSS software, data analysis was performed by descriptive and inferential statistics. In this study, mean pain score was significantly lower in the intervention group compared to the control group (p<0.05). Also, the women in the intervention group had a lower mean pain score on all 3 examinationscompared to the women in the control group.But no statistically significant difference was observed in pain intensity between the men in the intervention and control groups. In this study, pain significantly relieved in the patients in the intervention group compared to those in the control group. It seems that use of gabapantin in addition to nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) is more effective than NSAIDs alone in reducing the pain intensity.