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Increased Risk of Myofascial Pain Syndrome Among Patients with Insomnia
Wei-Chen Lin1,2,3, Cheng-Che Shen2,4,5, Shih-Jen Tsai1,2
1Department of Psychiatry, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.
Objective:
The aim of this study is to evaluate the risk of developing myofascial pain syndrome among patients diagnosed with insomnia.
Methods:
We conducted a population-based longitudinal study of a matched cohort with 7,895 participants (1,579 patients with insomnia and 6,316 controls) who were selected from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database. The patients were observed for a maximum of 10 years to determine the incidence of newly diagnosed myofascial pain syndrome. A Cox regression analysis was performed to identify the risk factors associated with myofascial pain syndrome in patients with insomnia.
Results:
During the 10-year follow-up period, 182 insomnia patients (14.9 per 1,000 person-years) and 379 controls (7.5 per 1,000 person-years) were diagnosed with myofascial pain syndrome. The incidence risk ratio of myofascial pain syndrome between the insomnia and control patients was 2.00 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.67-2.38, P < 0.001). After adjusting for age, sex, monthly income, urbanization, and comorbidities, the insomnia patients were 1.93 times more likely to develop myofascial pain syndrome (95% CI = 1.62-2.31, P < .001) than the control patients. Malignant neoplasm (hazard ratio = 3.08) and living in urban areas (hazard ratio = 3.05) were identified as independent risk factors for myofascial pain syndrome in patients with insomnia.
Conclusions:
Patients with insomnia had a higher risk of developing myofascial pain syndrome than controls. This study adds to the understanding of the complex relationship between sleep disturbance and pain.
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