Chronic pain: 4 out of 10 anxious or depressed patients

Four in ten patients, with chronic pain, also suffer from depression and anxiety, according to a new study published in the journal Jama Network. To achieve this conclusion, the researchers carried out a meta-analysis of existing work on this subject.

54 % risk of depression in fibromyalgia patients

In all, they analyzed 376 studies on 347,468 people with chronic pain in 50 countries. The overall prevalence was 39.3 % for depression and 40.2 % for anxiety.

But scientists discovered that the risk was not the same according to the origin of the evils. The most concerned were patients with fibromyalgiaa disease with muscle and joint pain. These had a prevalence of 54 % for depression and 55.5 % for anxiety.

On the other hand, people with arthritis had the lowest prevalence percentages: 29.1 % for depression, 17.5 % for anxiety.

Young patients and women with harmful pain

Among adults with chronic pain, young patients and women were more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety. And this, even more, if their pains were harmful, the tRoison type of pain, according to the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP).

Professor Pascale Vergne-Salle, rheumatologist in the Center for Chronic Pain in the Limoges University Hospital, defines harmful pain in these terms at Vidal : “This is a more functional involvement, which would result from an exaggerated response to the painful stimuli at the level of the posterior horn of the marrow and at the cerebral level with an impairment of the pain inhibitors controls, otherwise called central centralization”.

The mental health of people with chronic pain would therefore be more at risk, compared to the general population. The authors believe that this public health problem should be the subject of a more systematic screening of health professionals.

In France, chronic pain affects approximately 30 % of adults, according to theNational Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm).