Pain
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The EQ-5D and Short Form (SF)12 are widely used generic health-related quality of life (HRQoL) questionnaires. They can be used to derive health utility index scores, on a scale where 0 is equivalent to death and 1 represents full health, with scores less than zero representing states "worse than death." We compared EQ-5D or SF-6D health utility index scores in patients with no chronic pain, and chronic pain with and without neuropathic characteristics (NC), and to explore their discriminant ability for pain severity. Self-reported health and chronic pain status was collected as part of a UK general population survey (n=4451). ⋯ Health utilities derived from EQ-5D and SF-12/36 can discriminate between group differences for chronic pain with and without NC and greater pain severity. However, the instruments generate widely differing HRQoL scores for the same patient groups. The choice between using the EQ-5D or SF-6D matters greatly when estimating the burden of disease.
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Living in a lower socioeconomic status neighborhood has been shown to alter stress system function and is associated with a number of adverse health outcomes, but its influence on musculoskeletal pain (MSP) outcomes after traumatic stress exposures such as motor vehicle collision (MVC) has not been assessed. We performed a multicenter, prospective study that enrolled 948 European-American individuals within 24 hours of MVC who were discharged home after emergency department evaluation. Follow-up evaluations were completed via telephone or Internet survey 6 weeks, 6 months, and 1 year after MVC on 91%, 89%, and 91% of participants, respectively. ⋯ After adjustment for individual-level factors, living in more disadvantaged neighborhoods was associated with increased MSP (P=0.0009) and increased pain interference with daily function (P<0.0001). The relationship between neighborhood disadvantage and MSP was moderated by a common single nucleotide polymorphism, rs2817038, 5' of the gene encoding FKBP5, a functional regulator of glucocorticoid receptor sensitivity (interaction P-value=0.0015). These data support the hypothesis that low neighborhood socioeconomic status increases the likelihood of worse MSP outcomes after traumatic stress exposures such as MVC, and that this influence is mediated in part via its influence on stress system function.
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Patients presenting for treatment of chronic pain often believe that pain reduction must be achieved before returning to normal functioning. However, treatment programs for chronic pain typically take a rehabilitative approach, emphasizing decreasing pain-related disability first with the expectation that pain reduction will follow. This information is routinely provided to patients, yet no studies have systematically examined the actual trajectories of pain and disability in a clinical care setting. ⋯ Although pain scores reduced slightly from pretreatment to posttreatment, the longitudinal decline over treatment was not statistically significant. As expected, the rate of change of disability was significantly more rapid than pain. Evidence for variability in treatment response was noted, suggesting the need for additional research into individual trajectories of change in pediatric pain treatment.
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Functional neuroimaging studies suggest that the anterior, mid, and posterior division of the insula subserve different functions in the perception of pain. The anterior insula (AI) has predominantly been associated with cognitive-affective aspects of pain, while the mid and posterior divisions have been implicated in sensory-discriminative processing. We examined whether this functional segregation is paralleled by differences in (1) structural and (2) resting state connectivity and (3) in correlations with pain-relevant psychological traits. ⋯ Moreover, resting state connectivity revealed strong connectivity of all 3 subdivisions with the thalamus. On the behavioural level, AI structural connectivity was related to the individual degree of pain vigilance and awareness that showed a positive correlation with AI-amygdala connectivity and a negative correlation with AI-rostral anterior cingulate cortex connectivity. In sum, our findings show a differential structural and resting state connectivity for the anterior, mid, and posterior insula with other pain-relevant brain regions, which might at least partly explain their different functional profiles in pain processing.