Chronic Pain and Comorbid Depression: A Narrative Review

Abstract

This narrative review of research includes summaries of 44 papers on the comorbid conditions of chronic pain and depression that were published during the years 2022 and 2023. The publications of this period are primarily randomized controlled trials and systematic reviews/ meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials. Many of these are focused on the prevalence of chronic pain and depression which ranged from 7% to 25% in different age groups and in different countries. Many of the studies addressed the bidirectionality of chronic pain and depression and predictors including stress and inactivity. Ketamine was the most frequent intervention in this literature. And, the most frequent underlying mechanism was involvement of the amygdala. Surprisingly, very few studies focused on youth and on long-term effects of the comorbidity of chronic pain and depression. Methodological problems relate to the variability in the assessments of chronic pain and depression, the selfreport measures and the cross-sectional data that are not definitive about directionality of the chronic pain and depression relationship.