Older and younger adults in pain management programs in the United States: differences and similarities

1) To investigate health status of older (>or=60 years) and younger adults (<60 years) with chronic pain and to separately compare that with existing normative data; and 2) to examine more fully differences in health status between younger and older adults with chronic pain and explore their geographic variation across three multidisciplinary pain programs in the Pacific, Mountain, and New England regions of the United States.

We performed a cross-sectional analysis.

Initial assessments of 6,147 patients dating from January 1998 to January 2003 were used.

We used the Treatment Outcomes of Pain Survey (TOPS), a disease-specific instrument that includes the Short Form-36.

The health status of the older pain patients in terms of their actual scores was comparable with that of younger pain patients across the three sites. Health status is impaired to a lesser degree in older than in younger adults with chronic pain as compared with normative adults. Statistically significant differences were found in a number of domains of the TOPS. Older adults with chronic pain present with pain intensity similar to that of younger patients with chronic pain, but report better mental health (P < 0.002), less fear-avoidance (P < 0.05), less passive coping (P < 0.0001), more life control (P < 0.05), and more lower body physical limitations (P < 0.005) than younger patients with chronic pain.

Older adults with chronic pain differ in a number of important domains from younger adults with chronic pain: overall the former present with greater physical, and less psychosocial impairment.