PREVALENCE OF CHRONIC PAIN IN INDIVIDUALS RESIDENTS IN THE STATE OF PARANA, BRAZIL

S. de Andrade Melo Knaut¹, G. Socolovski², I.I. Kerppers¹, L.A. Portela Klosovski¹, M. P. Baroni^1,3,4, B. T. Saragiotto^3,4,5

¹Universidade Estadual do Centro-Oeste do Paraná, Physiotherapy, Guarapuava, Brazil, ²Universidade Estadual do Centro-Oeste (UNICENTRO), Master's Student in Science, Postgraduate Course in Nanosciences and Biosciences, Guarapuava, Brazil, ³Universidade Cidade de São Paulo (UNICID), Masters and Doctoral Programs in Physical Therapy, São Paulo, Brazil, ⁴Centre for Pain, Health and Lifestyle, São Paulo, Brazil, ⁵University of Sydney, Institute for Musculoskeletal Health, Sydney, Brazil

Background: Chronic pain is among the leading causes of longest life lived with disability in the world. According to the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), 20% of adults suffer from pain globally and 10% are diagnosed with chronic pain each year. According to the IASP, chronic pain is defined as an unpleasant emotional, sensory experience lasting more than three months. Among the explanations for the phenomena responsible for chronic pain, one of the most cited in the literature is central sensitization, a phenomenon of synaptic plasticity and increased neuronal responsiveness in the central pain pathways after painful insults. There are few epidemiological studies of pain in Brazil. However, this type of research should be further explored, as it would have a great impact on the development of pain prevention, education, promotion and intervention strategies.

Purpose: Investigate the prevalence of chronic pain in individuals residents in the state of Parana as well as to describe the different types and characteristics of pain that affect the population of this region.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional epidemiological study following the recommendations of the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE). Data were collected via Google Forms, from April 2022 to May 2022. The online questionnaire was released on social media “WhatsApp”, “Facebook” and “Instagram”. Individuals were instructed to answer the questionnaire only if they were over 18 years old and resided in the state of Parana, in Brazil. As this was an epidemiological research, there were no other exclusion criteria. If any non-resident or minor answered the questionnaire, they were automatically excluded from the study. Descriptive data and correlation analysis tests were processed using SPSS 21.0 software for Windows.

Results: 434 individuals aged between 18 and 80⁺ years respond the online questionnaire. 81% of them were under 50 years old. 312/434 were women, 371/434 responded being white and 310 lived in the south-central part of the state. 53% of the participants answered to be married and 84% of respondents belong to class C with family income of up to 9 minimum wages. 20% have completed high school and 24% have completed graduate school. Out of this 434 respondents, 256 (59%) reported having pain for more than 3 months, most of them started more than 1 year ago and with higher prevalence in the head and lumbar spine. 81% claim to use medication for pain relief. The most frequent types of pain were burning, stabbing and radiating, where many patients reported more than one type of pain. 53% of patients reported their pain gets worse in the cold, 77% when they get nervous and only 18% said their pain got worse after covid-19. Finally, 50% say they feel sad because of the pain.

Conclusions: It was observed a great prevalence of chronic pain in the residents of Parana, exceeding 50%, reaffirming the need for prevention and health promotion strategies.

Implications: Well understand the prevalence of chronic pain in Parana is of utmost importance on the development of pain prevention, education, promotion and intervention strategies.

Funding acknowledgements: No funding

Keywords:
Chronic pain
Epidemiology study
Public health

Topics:
Pain & pain management
Globalisation: health systems, policies & strategies
Health promotion & wellbeing/healthy ageing/physical activity

Did this work require ethics approval? Yes

Institution: Universidade Estadual do Centro-Oeste

Committee: Research Ethics Committee of Universidade Estadual do Centro-Oeste

Ethics number: CAAE 467004621.0.0000.0106