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Teens with psychiatric disorders more likely to experience chronic pain
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Adolescents with psychiatric disorders are likely to experience chronic pain, especially if they are diagnosed with a mood or anxiety disorder, according to study data. Further, researchers found that girls with psychiatric disorders were more likely to report chronic pain.
Wenche L. Mangerud, PhD, of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and colleagues administered questionnaires to 717 patients aged 13 to 18 years who visited the department of child and adolescent psychiatry clinic at least once between 2009 and 2011. The questionnaires asked participants about pain and pain-related disability.
Wenche L. Mangerud
Of the 566 participants who had psychiatric disorders, 70.4% had chronic pain and 22.2% had pain-related disability. Chronic musculoskeletal pain was the most frequent type, reported by 58% of study adolescents in the study. Abdominal pain was most prevalent among participants with eating disorders.
Researchers found that chronic and multisite pain increased with age. Girls reported a higher frequency of chronic pain, multisite pain and pain-related disability compared with boys. Participants with hyperkinetic disorders and mood or anxiety disorders had the highest risk for pain-related disability.
“Both anxiety and depression on their own can decrease the quality of life for these adolescents. Now we see that they also suffer from chronic pain. To treat anxiety in a positive way, physical pain must also be treated and vice versa. It is important that treatment in their younger years be effective, so that these problems don’t continue into adulthood, as they unfortunately often do,” Mangerud said in a press release.
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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