Prevalence and Characteristics of Chronic Pain in the Chinese Community-dwelling Elderly: A Cross-sectional Study.

Abstract

\n Background: Chronic pain has adverse impacts on health and daily life in the elderly. Gaining insight into chronic pain that affects the Chinese community-dwelling elderly is important for pain management in China, which possesses the largest elderly population in the world.Methods: This was a cross-sectional design that followed the STROBE Guideline. A randomized cluster sampling method was used to recruit participants in the Sichuan Province from Dec 2018 to May 2019. Face-to-face interviews were performed in order to collect socio-demographic data, characteristics and health seeking behaviors of chronic pain through a self-designed questionnaire.Results: A total of 1,381 older adults participated in this study. Among these participants, 791 (57.3%) had chronic pain. Here, prevalence and pain intensity were both found to increase from the 60-69 group to the 70-79 group, which then decreased in the ≥80 group with no significant differences in sex (p>0.05). The most common pain locations were observed to be in the legs/feet (53.5%), head (23.6) and abdomen/pelvis (21.1%). Among the elderly suffering from chronic pain, only 29.4% sought medical help while 59.2% received medication and 59.7% adopted non-drug therapy.Conclusion: Chronic pain is a common health concern in the Chinese community-dwelling elderly, which possesses different characteristics compared to populations from other countries. In this regard, easier access to medication assistance and provision of scientific guidance for non-drug therapy may serve as satisfactory approaches in improving pain management.