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Sociodemographic predictors of pain in old people

Serbian population-based study

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Summary

Background

With the growing increase in the older proportion of the world population, there is also an increase in specific age-related chronic diseases and conditions, including pain. We aimed to evaluate the association of sociodemographic factors with the presence and different degrees of pain intensity in people aged 65 years and older.

Methods

The population-based study, conducted in 2013, included 3540 individuals from Serbia. As pain predictors, we analyzed further sociodemographic characteristics: gender, age, body mass index, level of education, marital status, and wealth index. For pain assessment, we used the pain domain of the SF-36 version 2.0 questionnaire.

Results

People over the age of 85 years are 27% more likely to have moderate pain than younger respondents; however, pain is less likely reported by men (by 42%), persons with overweight (by 23%) or obesity (by 21%), respondents with secondary (by 50%) or university education (29%), as well as those belonging to the upper household wealth index (by 22%), than by their counterparts.

Conclusion

Pain is less likely in people of age below 85 years, male gender, those with higher educational level and higher wealth index, as well as overweight or obese individuals. Also, we have demonstrated that sociodemographic predictors differently correlate with the onset of the pain and its severity degree in persons of 65 years and older.

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Acknowledgements

The author MSM was supported by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia (Contract No. 175087).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Social Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia

    Milena Santric Milicevic

  2. Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia

    Dejan Nikolic MD, PhD, FEBPRM, Uros Babic & Filip Milanovic

  3. Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Department, University Children’s Hospital, Belgrade, Serbia

    Dejan Nikolic MD, PhD, FEBPRM

  4. Clinical Center of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia

    Milena Kostadinovic, Uros Babic & Milica Mitrovic-Jovanovic

  5. University Rehabilitation Institute “Soca”, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Andrej Bavec

Authors
  1. Milena Santric Milicevic
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  2. Dejan Nikolic MD, PhD, FEBPRM
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  3. Milena Kostadinovic
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  4. Uros Babic
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  5. Milica Mitrovic-Jovanovic
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  6. Filip Milanovic
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dejan Nikolic MD, PhD, FEBPRM.

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Conflict of interest

M. Santric Milicevic, D. Nikolic, M. Kostadinovic,U. Babic, M. Mitrovic-Jovanovic, F. Milanovic, and A. Bavec declare that they have no competing interests.

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Santric Milicevic, M., Nikolic, D., Kostadinovic, M. et al. Sociodemographic predictors of pain in old people . Wien Klin Wochenschr 133, 578–585 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00508-020-01783-x

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