Abstract
Chronic pain can pose a serious challenge in everyday life for many individuals globally, especially in developing countries, but studies explicitly exploring risk factors of chronic pain beyond demographic characteristics using survey data have been scarce. To address this problem, this study analyzed World Health Organization data on chronic pain in Ukraine to explore demographic, psychological, and treatment perception-related risk factors to chronic pain. We replicated previous reports of older age, female sex, married status, inadequate financial resources, and comorbidity of other physical conditions as significant demographic risk factors for chronic pain diagnosis but not necessarily for severe pain. We also found evidence for psychological risk factors and treatment perceptions as significant predictors for chronic pain diagnosis and its severity. These results provide a first step in examining beyond demographic risk factors for chronic pain diagnosis and severity and, instead, assessing potential psychological risk factors.
Highlights
The challenges of chronic pain affect many individuals globally, with at least 41% of Europeans in developing countries diagnosed with chronic pain.[1]
While large-scale epidemiological data have provided a wealth of information on demographic risk factors for chronic pain in developing countries, few studies have explicitly explored psychological risk factors of chronic pain and the role of treatment perceptions in its diagnosis and severity using survey-wide data.[3]
We explored the following demographic risk factors commonly reported for chronic pain: sex, age (18–34, 35–49, 50–64, and +65), education level completed, current marital status, and financial status
Summary
The challenges of chronic pain affect many individuals globally, with at least 41% of Europeans in developing countries diagnosed with chronic pain.[1]. The risk factors for chronic pain diagnosis have consistently included being female, over the age of 40, currently married, with coexisting physical conditions.[2,3,4] For psychological risk factors, only comorbidity of chronic pain and psychiatric diagnosis and the role of psychological stress on chronic pain have been reported.[3,5,6,7] whether psychiatric diagnosis and non-specific psychological distress are risk factors predictive of chronic
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
