ABERDEEN, Scotland, March 23 (UPI) -- People with bad physical or psychological health may be at risk of developing chronic widespread pain after a vehicle crash, Scottish researchers say.
Lead author Gareth Jones of the University of Aberdeen School of Medicine and Dentistry says he defines chronic widespread pain as the presence of pain above and below the waist, or on both the left and right sides of the body, for three months or longer.
To examine the relationship between different physically traumatic events -- traffic accident, workplace injury, surgery, fracture, hospitalization and childbirth -- and the onset of chronic widespread pain the researchers tracked 2,069 participants from the Epidemiology of Functional Disorders study, which provided data on musculoskeletal pain and associated psychological distress at three time points over a four-year period.
Of those who participated in the study, 12 percent reported new onset of chronic widespread pain, with more than one-third of these subjects more likely to report at least one traumatic event during the study period than other individuals.
After factoring for age, sex, general practice and baseline pain status, those who reported a traffic accident experienced an 84 percent increase in the likelihood of new onset chronic widespread pain, but there was no association with hospitalization, surgery or in women who gave birth.
The finding was published in the journal Arthritis Care & Research.
