RESEARCH ARTICLE
The Effect of Pressure Pain Sensitivity and Patient Factors on Self-Reported Pain-Disability in Patients with Chronic Neck Pain
Zakir Uddin*, 1, 5, 6, Joy C. MacDermid*, 1, 2, Linda J. Woodhouse3, John J. Triano1, 4, Victoria Galea1, Anita R. Gross1
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2014Volume: 8
First Page: 302
Last Page: 309
Publisher ID: TOORTHJ-8-302
DOI: 10.2174/1874325001408010302
Article History:
Received Date: 28/3/2014Revision Received Date: 26/6/2014
Acceptance Date: 30/6/2014
Electronic publication date: 30 /9/2014
Collection year: 2014
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/) which permits unrestrictive use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
The study was conducted to estimate the extent to which pressure pain sensitivity (PPS) and patient factors predict pain-related disability in patients with neck pain (NP), and to determine if PPS differs by gender. Forty-four participants with a moderate level of chronic NP were recruited for this cross sectional study. All participants were asked to complete self-reported assessments of pain, disability and comorbidity and then underwent PPS testing at 4-selected body locations. Pearson`s r w was computed to explore relationships between the PPS measures and the self-reported assessments. Regression models were built to identify predictors of pain and disability. An independent sample t-test was done to identify gender-related differences in PPS, pain-disability and comorbidity. In this study, greater PPS (threshold and tolerance) was significantly correlated to lower pain-disability (r = -.30 to -.53, p≤0.05). Age was not correlated with pain or disability but comorbidity was (r= 0.42-.43, p≤0.01). PPS at the 4-selected body locations was able to explain neck disability (R2=25-28%). Comorbidity was the strongest predictor of neck disability (R2 =30%) and pain (R2=25%). Significant mean differences for gender were found in PPS, disability and comorbidity, but not in pain intensity or rating. This study suggests that PPS may play a role in outcome measures of pain and disability but between-subject comparisons should consider gender and comorbidity issues.
