J. Ektor-andersen et al., The experience of pain from the shoulder-neck area related to the total body pain, self-experienced health and mental distress, PAIN, 82(3), 1999, pp. 289-295
The present paper presents the relationship between the total body-pain (TB
P) score, defined as the total number of areas shaded on a pain drawing, an
d the pain from one area, the Shoulder-Neck (SN), among subjects in or out
of full-time gainful work respectively. Furthermore, relationships between
pain-score, self-experienced health (SEH) and level of mental distress, mea
sured with the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) were investigated. The an
alyses is based on a general population sample of 8,116 men and women, 45-5
0 years of age, completing a questionnaire in the Malmo Shoulder Neck Study
. The TBP-score was higher with increasing pain from the SN area, being out
of full-time work and among women. Independently of working status, the SE
H decreased with increasing pain in the SN area, which was enhanced, by inc
reasing TBP-score. The proportion of women out of full-time gainful work wa
s twice as high as for men. Women showed the same SEH levels with regard to
their pain status, independently of their working status while men working
full-time scored higher than women did. Oppositely, men out of full-time w
ork had the lowest SEH in relation to their pain status. The GHQ scores of
mental distress varied essentially in the same way as the SEH did. The resu
lts emphasize the need for an assessment of the number of pain locations an
d which one that first gave symptoms when studying possible causal relation
ships between low force musculoskeletal load and development of localized p
ain. If such data are not collected in epidemiological studies on causes fo
r musculoskeletal pain it will at best lead to unnoticed effect modificatio
ns. At worst a potential confounding situation may occur. The relationship
between the self-experienced health, mental distress and chronic pain ident
ifies chronic pain as a major public-health problem and suggests a multidis
ciplinary approach in the treatment and rehabilitation already before work
capacity is lost. (C) 1999 International Association for the Study of Pain.
Published by Elsevier Science B.V.