The course of non-malignant chronic pain: A 12-year follow-up of a cohort from the general population
Abstract
The high prevalence of chronic pain (duration >3 months) reported from different populations indicates a public health problem. Knowledge of the long-term course of chronic non-malignant pain is incomplete and scarce. This paper describes a follow-up of a cohort recruited from a survey in the general population. The cohort (n=214) consisted initially of individuals with widespread or located (neck-shoulder) pain or without chronic pain. The individuals were initially examined and replied to questionnaires on pain, social factors, lifestyle, medication and health care after two and 12 years. The deaths during the period were obtained from the population register. Complete data exist for 77% of the eligible individuals. After 12 years one-third of the individuals initially without pain reported chronic pain, and among those with initial chronic pain 85% still reported chronic pain. The number of painful areas was the strongest predictor of chronic pain 12 years later (OR 15.8; >3 locations vs. 0) whereas a social factor (having a close friend) decreased the risk (OR 0.44). The onset of chronic pain during the same period was related to the physical workload (work with bent positions; OR 5.31; yes vs. no). Mortality was significantly higher in the group initially reporting widespread pain compared with the other groups. The chronicity of widespread chronic pain supports early and intense intervention among individuals with located pain. The association between chronic widespread…
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The experience of pain rarely remits in chronic pain.
“the experience of pain rarely remits”
Cites
Macfarlane, G. J., Crombie, I. K., McBeth, J., & Silman, A. J. (2001) · BMJ · doi:10.1136/bmj.323.7314.662 · Cited by 223 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Chronic pain: a review of its epidemiology and associated factors in population-based studies
Mills, S. E. E., Nicolson, K. P., & Smith, B. H. (2019) · British Journal of Anaesthesia · doi:10.1016/j.bja.2019.03.023 · Cited by 1,728 · see citing works
Chronic pain epidemiology and its clinical relevance
van Hecke, O., Torrance, N., & Smith, B. H. (2013) · British Journal of Anaesthesia · doi:10.1093/bja/aet123 · Cited by 632 · see citing works
Abnormal endogenous pain modulation is a shared characteristic of many chronic pain conditions
Staud, R. (2012) · Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics · doi:10.1586/ern.12.41 · Cited by 290 · see citing works
Successful aging: Advancing the science of physical independence in older adults
Anton, S. D., Woods, A. J., Ashizawa, T., Barb, D., Buford, T. W., Carter, C. S., Clark, D. J., Cohen, R. A., Corbett, D. B., Cruz-Almeida, Y., et al. (2015) · Ageing Research Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.arr.2015.09.005 · Cited by 292 · see citing works
“(Andersson 2004;Sibille, Witek-Janusek, Mathews, and Fillingim 2012;Szanton, Allen, Seplaki, Bandeen-Roche, and Fried 2009;Torrance, Elliott, Lee, and Smith 2010) Identifying risk factors, including resilience and vulnerability factors, that impact the onset and/or consequences of chronic pain will…”
BackgroundSevere chronic pain is associated with increased 10 year mortality. A cohort record linkage study
Torrance, N., Elliott, A. M., Lee, A. J., & Smith, B. H. (2010) · European Journal of Pain · doi:10.1016/j.ejpain.2009.07.006 · Cited by 276 · see citing works
Epidemiology of chronic pain in Denmark: An update
Sjøgren, P., Ekholm, O., Peuckmann, V., & Grønbæk, M. (2009) · European Journal of Pain · doi:10.1016/j.ejpain.2008.04.007 · Cited by 203 · see citing works
Vowles, K. E., Witkiewitz, K., Sowden, G., & Ashworth, J. (2014) · The Journal of Pain · doi:10.1016/j.jpain.2013.10.002 · Cited by 181 · see citing works
Cöster, L., Kendall, S., Gerdle, B., Henriksson, C., Henriksson, K. G., & Bengtsson, A. (2008) · European Journal of Pain · doi:10.1016/j.ejpain.2007.10.001 · Cited by 119 · see citing works
Ng, M.-Y., & Wong, W.-S. (2013) · Journal of Health Psychology · doi:10.1177/1359105312439733 · Cited by 58 · see citing works
Vowles, K. E., Fink, B. C., & Cohen, L. L. (2014) · Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science · doi:10.1016/j.jcbs.2014.04.003 · Cited by 55 · see citing works
Pain acceptance and its impact on function and symptoms in fibromyalgia
Tangen, S. F., Helvik, A.-S., Eide, H., & Fors, E. A. (2020) · Scandinavian Journal of Pain · doi:10.1515/sjpain-2020-0049 · Cited by 39 · see citing works
Cook, A. J., Meyer, E. C., Evans, L. D., Vowles, K. E., Klocek, J. W., Kimbrel, N. A., Gulliver, S. B., & Morissette, S. B. (2015) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/j.brat.2015.07.003 · Cited by 31 · see citing works
Pielech, M., Bailey, R. W., McEntee, M. L., Ashworth, J., Levell, J., Sowden, G., & Vowles, K. E. (2016) · Behavior Modification · doi:10.1177/0145445515616911 · Cited by 21 · see citing works
Psycholog ische Mechanismen der Chronifizierung – Konsequenzen für die Prävention
Hasenbring, M. I., Korb, J., & Pfingsten, M. (2017) · Schmerzpsychotherapie · doi:10.1007/978-3-662-50512-0_7 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
- Authors
- Andersson, H. I.
- Affiliations
- Kristianstad University (SE)
- Corresponding author
- Andersson, H.Ingemar
- ORCID
- Andersson, H.Ingemar
- Venue
- European Journal of Pain
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2004-02
- Volume
- 8
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 47-53
- ISSN
- 1090-3801 (ISSN-L)
- 1532-2149
- OpenAlex
- W2100439762
- Cited by
- 181
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 15 · 2015: 12 · 2014: 14 · 2013: 7 · 2012: 16
- FWCI
- 3.43
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- European Journal of Pain (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pharmacology › Musculoskeletal pain and rehabilitation
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Research
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Pain Mechanisms and Treatments
- Keywords
- chronic non-cancer pain, chronic widespread pain, neck and shoulder pain, social factors, physical workload, mortality
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Aged, Chronic Disease, Female, Follow-Up Studies, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Pain, Public Health, Surveys and Questionnaires, Risk Factors, Social Environment, Sweden, Cohort Studies, Prevalence, Workload, Disease Progression
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
