A study on the prevalence of chronic pain in the community-dwelling elderly in Luzhou and its relative factors

Abstract

Objective To investigate the prevalence of chronic pain among the community-dwelling elderly in Luzhou and its relative factors. Methods A total of 1 000 participants aged 60 years and over were selected by multi-stage stratified sampling. Informations including sociodemographic characteristics, lifestyle, health condition, incidence of chronic pain were collected. Results The prevalence of chronic pain was 45.7%. The relative factors for chronic pain were female (OR=2.145, P<0.001), hypertension (OR=1.542, P=0.002), economic income (OR=1.434, P=0.005). 58.0% of the patients went to hospital for medical treatment, and only 16.8% of the patients got complete pain remission. Conclusions The community-dwelling elderly in Luzhou have a high prevalence of chronic pain, low doctor-consulting rate and low degree of pain remission, which should be noted. Key words: Pain; Epidemiologic factors