Chronic Pain After Lung Transplantation and Its Impact on Quality of Life: A 4-Year Follow-up

Aiming to investigate the prevalence of chronic pain and its impact on quality of life of lung transplantation (LTx) recipients, we performed a transversal study collecting data using a standard interview model in 2 different periods: first, in 2016 we studied LTx recipients after 3 to 11 months of the transplantation; and second, in 2019, we studied the same patients after 39 to 55 months of transplantation surgery. The chosen questionnaires were the Brief Pain Inventory and Short-Form Health Survey. Chronic pain was identified in 47.2% of the analyzed recipients at the initial interview and in 40.7% at the second evaluation. In both periods, the domain quality of life was the most affected in contrast to functional capacity, which was the least affected. On the first analysis, a moderate negative correlation was found between pain intensity and functional capacity domains (-0,42/P = .010), pain (-0,46/P = .005), and mental health (-047/P = .004); meanwhile, the second survey showed a moderate/high negative correlation for most of the domains, except for the mental health (-0,036/P = .120). We conclude that the prevalence of chronic pain after LTx is high, and the pain intensity had a moderate negative correlation with domains such functional capacity, mental health, and pain at the first analysis in contrast to the moderate/high negative correlation for almost every domain, except mental health, at the second analysis.