Knee injuries are common problem for active duty military members which  may impact on their mental and physical well-being and their force readiness. In previous work, we noted in military members, who participated in a rehabilitation study after traumatic trans-tibial amputation, a negative association between pain, as estimated from 4 pain scales, and physical-wellbeing from the SF36. Mental-wellbeing from the SF36 was only related to one of the four scales. We now ask whether a similar relationship between pain and physical and mental wellbeing is observed in active duty military members who participated in a randomized treatment trial for knee injury.

SF12 physical-wellbeing improved from a normalized score mean 40.6-(SD 7.10) to 46.5-(SD=5.8), while the mental-wellbeing showed little change from mean 59.5-(SD 7.4) to 59.0-(SD5.5). The SF12 physical-wellbeing scale was significantly associated with each of the pain scales when considering the repeated measurements for each subject. The SF12 mental scale was not significantly associated with any of the pain scales.

Association noted between physical-wellbeing on SF12 and each of the pain scales, but not the mental-wellbeing scale. Military members had high mental-wellbeing score that showed relatively little change, while the physical well being was low and tended to improve during the intervention but not to the level of their mental-wellbeing.