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OA pain severity increased significantly with persistence of depressed mood
Osteoarthritis pain severity increased significantly with the persistence of depressed mood, according to recently published data. However, there was no direct association between depressive symptoms and greater knee osteoarthritis pain at subsequent time points.
“The causal effect of depressive symptoms on OA knee pain does not change over time, but pain severity significantly increases with the persistence of depressed mood,” Alan M. Rathburn, PhD, a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, and colleagues wrote.
They assessed depressive symptoms and pain during 48 months in 2,287 adults with radiographic knee osteoarthritis (OA), defined as a Kellgren-Lawrence grade of 2 or 3. They assessed depressive symptoms at each annual visit with the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale and measured OA pain with the WOMAC pain subscale, which was restructured to go from 0 to 100.
Researchers found depressive symptoms at each visit were not associated with greater OA knee pain at subsequent time points. However, there was a dose-response relationship between persistence of depressive symptoms and OA knee pain severity compared with non-depressed patients, as one visit had a causal mean difference in WOMAC score of 0.89; visit two had a score of 2.35; and visit three had a score of 3.57. – by Will Offit
Disclosure: The researchers report funding from a National Institute on Aging training grant.