ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES:
Chronic pain affects thousands of people, changing their functionality and emotional status. The Brief Pain Inventory has not been used in populational studies and may be a relevant tool. This study aimed at characterizing chronic pain sensory aspects and their influence on daily life activities.
METHODS:
This is a cross-sectional populational study carried out in a Family Health Unit (Salvador/BA/Brazil). Participated in the study 191 individuals aged 20 years or above, with pain for six months or longer. Brief Pain Inventory was used as evaluation tool because it has sensory aspects as predicting variables and reactive aspects as outcome variables. Chi-square test was used for proportional analysis and Spearman correlation test was used for intergroup comparisons.
RESULTS:
Sample was made up of 86.4% females, single (48.7%), non white (49.7%), low education (46.6%) and low socio-economic level (100.0%). Most participants (46.8%) have reported pain for at least five years, with predominance of knees (46.1%) and lumbar spine (42.4%), being that 77.5% of the population made systematic use of some painkiller. There has been negative correlation between sensory and reactive variables: general activities (p<0.001; r=0.482), mood (p<0.001; r=0.396), walking ability (p<0.001; r=0.318) and working ability (p<0.001; r=0.389). There has been no correlation for the ability of enjoying life (p=0.403; r=0.061).
CONCLUSION:
In a low socio-economic level population, chronic pain primarily affects knees and lumbar spine with negative interference on general activities, mood, walking and working ability.
Keywords:
Chronic pain; Epidemiology; Population