Objective To investigate the occurrence of exercise fear in patients with lumbar disc herniation after(LDH) surgery, and explore its influencing factors.

Methods A total of 105 patients with LDH were selected by convenient sampling method, and investigated using the personal data questionnaire, moophobia rating scale(TSK), rehabilitation exercise self-efficacy scale(SER), simplified McGill pain questionnaire(SF-MPQ) and fear avoidance belief scale(FABQ).

Results The exercise fear after operation in 65 cases(61.90%) were found among LDH patients.The differences of the exercise fear scores among patients with or without chronic diseases, with or without preoperative fear and with different disease course were statistically significant(P < 0.05).The TSK score was negatively correlated with SER total score, exercise self-efficacy and coping self-efficacy(P < 0.01), and positively correlated with S-PRI, A-PRI, VAS, PPI and FABQ(P < 0.01).The results of multiple linear regression showed that preoperative exercise fear, coping self-efficacy, affective pain rating index, existing pain intensity and FABQ were the independent influencing factors of postoperative exercise fear in LDH patients(P < 0.05 to P < 0.01), accounting for 83.10% of exercise fear.

Conclusions The incidence of exercise fear is high in LDH patients after surgery, so it is necessary to pay attention to key groups according to influencing factors, observe the current pain degree of patients after surgery, do health education, improve patients' self-efficacy in rehabilitation exercise, and reduce fear-avoidance belief.