Introduction Chronic pain can lead the subjective emotional pain response of an individual and has the potential to interplay with emotions at a cognitive level such as internal or external shame.

Aim The present study examined the relationship of internal and external shame with chronic low back pain (CLBP) and the differences between genders of athletes with CLBP.

Materials and Methods Two hundred athletes with CLBP participated in the present study (110 men, 90 women, mean age±SD 24,5±6,7). The measures used were: Other As Shamer Scale-OAS, (Goss, Gilbert & Allan, 1994), Experience of Shame Scale-ESS (Andrews, Qian & Valentine, 2002) and another questionnaire with socio-demographics, attitudes and self-reported questions data on the impact of the chronic pain in their life.

Results The mean scores (±SD) for men and women with CLBP and the p values from the T-tests were respectively: for total OAS, 12.96±7.0 and 15.68±8.8 (p=0.045) and for total ESS, 48.8±9.7 and 50.3±13 (p=0.366). Despite that there were no significant differences in ESS, the subscale of ESS regarding bodily shame revealed statistically significant difference between men and women (p=0.002).

Conclusion The results of the present study revealed the high levels of external shame in athletes of both genders with CLBP and confirmed that shame is an emotion highly connected with woman nature. Furthermore, from the subscale of ESS regarding bodily shame was presented that women have the self-perception of lower social power and the trend to judge there self less favorably to others.