• Tianyi Wang, Rachel Bergmans, Alexa Minc, John Krieger, Richard E Harris, Henry H Lai, J Quentin Clemens, Steven E Harte, Chelsea Kaplan, David A Williams, Bruce Naliboff, Robert Gallop, Sara Till, and Andrew Schrepf.
• Michigan Medicine.
• Clin J Pain. 2025 Jan 30.

ObjectivesAn emerging concept in the chronic pain literature, high-impact chronic pain (HICP), refers to pain that occurs very frequently and results in major disruption of daily life. Previous epidemiologic investigations have noted that lower educational attainment, age, and race appear to be associated with the frequency of HICP, but condition-specific investigations of HICP have been less common.MethodsHere we investigate HICP status and its clinical/demographic correlates in the Multidisciplinary Approach to the study of chronic Pelvic Pain research network Symptom Pattern Study.ResultsParticipants were 476 urologic pelvic pain syndrome (UCPPS) patients, 64% of whom were female. Of these, 22% were classified as having HICP, based on responses to the several questions about pain interference in daily life. We confirmed that African-American individuals and those with lower educational attainment were more likely to experience HICP (both P<0.05). Additionally, those with HICP demonstrated much greater levels of disability, genitourinary pain, urinary symptoms, widespread pain, pelvic floor tenderness, and were more likely experience pain in response to consuming standardized amounts of water (all P<0.05). Binary logistics regression showed that genitourinary pain, widespread pain, and race were the strongest prediction of pain in multivariate models. Furthermore, HICP status was associated with more self-reported healthcare utilization over the subsequent 18 months (P<0.05).DiscussionThese findings suggest that HICP affects more than 1 out of 5 UCPPS patients, with significant associated morbidity. Demographic and clinical characteristics associated with HICP may be useful for identifying at-risk UCPPS patients.Copyright © 2025 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.

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