IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v54y2002i2p221-228.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Severity of musculoskeletal pain: relations to socioeconomic inequality

Author

Listed:
  • Brekke, Mette
  • Hjortdahl, Per
  • Kvien, Tore K.

Abstract

The main aim of the study was to investigate possible associations between severity of non-inflammatory musculoskeletal pain and residential areas of contrasting socioeconomic status. A 4-page questionnaire inquiring about musculoskeletal pain, and also physical disability, mental health, life satisfaction and use of health services was sent to 10,000 randomly selected adults in Oslo, Norway. For the purpose of this study, we analysed data from respondents living in two socioeconomically contrasting areas of the city. Measures of pain (intensity, duration, localisation), physical disability (MHAQ), mental distress (SCL-5, sleep disturbances), life satisfaction and use of health services (general practitioner, rheumatologist, medication, involvement in and satisfaction with own care) were compared between respondents living in the two areas (n=870 and n=892 respondents, respectively) of whom 493 in each area reported non-inflammatory musculoskeletal pain. Multiple regression analyses adjusting for age revealed that living in the less affluent area was associated with strong and widespread pain, with high levels of physical disability and mental distress and with low life satisfaction. Living in the less affluent area was also associated with frequent use of analgesics and with low level of involvement in own health care, after adjustment for age, pain intensity and levels of physical disability and mental distress. Non-inflammatory musculoskeletal pain seems to be a more serious condition in a population living in a less affluent residential area compared with a more affluent one, even in an egalitarian society like Norway. Increased disease severity may thus amplify the impact of greater chronic morbidity in the disadvantaged part of the population. This should have implications for health care provision if the goal is treatment according to needs.

Suggested Citation

  • Brekke, Mette & Hjortdahl, Per & Kvien, Tore K., 2002. "Severity of musculoskeletal pain: relations to socioeconomic inequality," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 221-228, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:54:y:2002:i:2:p:221-228
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(01)00018-1
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Meghan C. Evans & Mohsen Bazargan & Sharon Cobb & Shervin Assari, 2019. "Pain Intensity among Community-Dwelling African American Older Adults in an Economically Disadvantaged Area of Los Angeles: Social, Behavioral, and Health Determinants," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(20), pages 1-17, October.
    2. Macchia, Lucía & Oswald, Andrew J., 2021. "Physical pain, gender, and the state of the economy in 146 nations," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 287(C).
    3. Jan D Reinhardt & Erik von Elm & Christine Fekete & Johannes Siegrist, 2012. "Social Inequalities of Functioning and Perceived Health in Switzerland–A Representative Cross-Sectional Analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(6), pages 1-7, June.
    4. Makdissi, Paul & Sylla, Daouda & Yazbeck, Myra, 2013. "Decomposing health achievement and socioeconomic health inequalities in presence of multiple categorical information," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 964-968.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:54:y:2002:i:2:p:221-228. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.