Trajectories and Individual Differences in Pain, Emotional Distress, and Prescription Opioid Misuse During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A One-Year Longitudinal Study.
J Pain
; 23(7): 1234-1244, 2022 07.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1796448
ABSTRACT
Recent studies suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic can serve as a unique psychosocial stressor that can negatively impact individuals with chronic pain. Using a large online sample in the U.S., the present study sought to investigate the impact of the pandemic on the trajectories of pain severity and interference, emotional distress (ie, anxiety and depressive symptoms), and opioid misuse behaviors across one year. Potential moderating effects of socio-demographic factors and individual differences in pain catastrophizing, pain acceptance, and sleep disturbance on outcome trajectories were also examined. Adults with chronic pain were surveyed three times across 1 year (April/May 2020 [N = 1,453]; June/July 2020 [N = 878], and May 2021 [N = 813]) via Amazon's Mechanical Turk online crowdsourcing platform. Mixed-effects growth models revealed that pain severity and interference, emotional distress, and opioid misuse behaviors did not significantly deteriorate across one year during the pandemic. None of the socio-demographic factors, pain catastrophizing, or sleep disturbance moderated outcome trajectories. However, individuals with higher pain acceptance reported greater improvement in pain severity (P< .008, 95% CI -.0002, -.00004) and depressive symptoms (P< .001, 95% CI -.001, -.0004) over time. Our findings suggest that the negative impact of the pandemic on pain, emotional distress, and opioid misuse behaviors is quite small overall. The outcome trajectories were also stable across different socio-demographic factors, as well as individual differences in pain catastrophizing and sleep disturbance. Nevertheless, interventions that target improvement of pain acceptance may help individuals with chronic pain be resilient during the pandemic. PERSPECTIVE Individuals with chronic pain overall did not experience significant exacerbation of pain, emotional distress, and opioid misuse across one year during the COVID-19 pandemic. Individuals with higher pain acceptance showed greater improvement in pain severity and depressive symptoms over time during the pandemic.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Pain Measurement
/
Chronic Pain
/
Psychological Distress
/
COVID-19
/
Opioid-Related Disorders
Type of study:
Cohort study
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Qualitative research
Topics:
Long Covid
Limits:
Adult
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
/
Middle aged
Language:
English
Journal:
J Pain
Journal subject:
Neurology
/
Psychophysiology
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
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