The purposes of this study were; 1) to gather data relevant to demographic features, major main management practices, and the level of impairment of the activities of daily living (ADL) of patients with back pain, 2) to test the sensitivity of the Korean Pain Rating Scale and the Graphic Rating Scales, and 3) to identify indirect indicators of back pain by analysing pain related-bebaviors. The level of pain was measured by Korean Pain Rating Scale(KPRS) and Graphic Rating Scales(GRS) developed by the reserchers. The GRS consists of two dimensions; the pain intensity (sensory) and unpleasantness (affective) measures. Of the 1,650 diagnosed back pain patients, from January 4 through June 30, 1987 by visiting outpatients' clinics of orthopedic and neurosurgical departments at 11 university hospitals in different districts of Korea, 330 men and women patients were self-selected by responding to the mailed questionnaires. The results were summarised as follows; Male exceeded female patients in number and onset of back pain were more prevalent in the age groups of 20s and the 30s. The average duration of suffering from the pain were 11 months, sixty three (19.1%) of the subjects retired from their jobs, one third(36.7%) have been hospitalized for the treatment of back pain. In two thirds(64.8%) of the cases pain was characterized as lower back pain. The average sleep hour was 6.8 hours per 24 hours and the average rest hour during the day was 3.3 hours. The mean percentage of pain measured by GRS was higher than that of KPRS. The level of sensory intensity as well as the affective level of pain measured by KPRS and GRS were not highly correlated (sensory intensity r=0.4986, affective r=0.5029) which indicated low discriminative power. On the other hand, intercorrelation between sensory and affective dimension measured by KPRS and GRS showed moderate interrelation(r=0.7247; r=0.7899). One-third(32.5%) of the subjects complied with the hospital prescribed treatment while the other one-third(31.5%) depended on self-remedy and traditional practices, and the last one-third did not imply any pain management practices. The following 6 pain-related behaviors such as length of hospitalization, rest hour during day hours, varieties of pain management practice implied, number of pain sites, need for ADL and discomfort accompanied by ADL revealed to be important indicators of back pain. An investigation of sociodemographic features of patients with back pain in a larger context, i.e. with bigger number of respondents is recommended.Tests for construct validity of KPRS, i.e. factor analysis is further recommended.