Chronic Pain and Quality of Life in Schizophrenic Patients

Abstract

Objective: To identify the prevalence and characteristics of chronic pain in schizophrenic patients and to compare the quality of life in patients with and without chronic pain. Methods: Crossover design with a probablistic sample of 205 adult schizophrenic outpatients (80% paranoid schizophrenia). Socio-demographic, psychiatric disorder, pain and quality of life (WHOQOL-brief) data were collected between June and September 2008. Results: Mean age was 37 years, 65% were men, and the mean time spent in school was 9 years; 87% were single, 65% lived with parents and 25% had a job. Among patients with chronic pain, 70% did not receive treatment for pain. Regarding quality of life, patients with pain had more physical disabilities compared to those without pain (p < .001). There were no differences in other domains. Comparisons between patients with and without pain did not show any differences in how much they felt their mental health problems disabled them. Conclusion: Chronic pain was common in schizophrenic patients (similar to the general population of a similar age) and decreased their quality of life. It is necessary to pay more attention to this co-morbidity.

Genome-wide Association Study of Multisite Chronic Pain in UK Biobank

“…Chronic pain and chronic pain disorders are often comorbid with psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders (Gureje et al, 2008). This has been observed for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) (Nicholl et al, 2014;McIntosh et al, 2016), post-traumatic stress-disorder (PTSD) (Shipherd et al, 2007;Dunn et al, 2011;Phifer et al, 2011;Outcalt et al, 2015;Akhtar et al, 2018), schizophrenia (Watson, Chandarana and Merskey, 1981;de Almeida et al, 2013;Engels et al, 2014) and bipolar disorder (BD) (Nicholl et al, 2014;Stubbs et al, 2015). There are also reported differences in the perception of pain and interoception (sensing and integration of bodily signals) for people with schizophrenia (Lévesque et al, 2012;Urban-Kowalczyk, Pigońska and Śmigielski, 2015), anorexia nervosa (AN) (Strigo et al, 2013;Bär et al, 2015;Bischoff-Grethe et al, 2018) and autism spectrum disorders (ASD) (Clarke, 2015;Gu et al, 2018), with some evidence of an increase in pain thresholds for AN and ASD.…”

Aggression, impulsivity, and suicide risk in benign chronic pain patients &ndash; a cross-sectional study

“…Chronic pain has a strong negative emotional impact on patients and their quality of life, due to goal frustration, external attribution for negative outcomes and perceived injustice, leading to unfavorable behavioral consequences that can directly contribute to its maintenance 5,6. It is well-known that the co-occurrence of pain and depression is common.…”

Pain in methadone maintenance therapy

“…It has been repeatedly emphasised in the available literature that pain has a negative impact on a number of aspects of substitution treatment patients' lives, including worse general quality of life [20][21][22]. In the presented study, patients also significantly assessed their quality of life as worse, specifically in terms of the impact of pain on daily activities or work as a result of inferior physical health.…”

“…W dostępnym piśmiennictwie wielokrotnie podkreślano negatywny wpływ odczuwania bólu na szereg aspektów funkcjonowania pacjentów leczonych w programach substytucyjnych, w tym na gorszą jakość ich życia [20][21][22]. W przedstawianym badaniu pacjenci również istotnie gorzej oceniali swoją jakość życia, szczególnie pod kątem wpływu bólu na problemy związane z codzienną aktywnością lub pracą, będące wynikiem gorszego stanu zdrowia fizycznego.…”