Bedside clinical tests to assess sensitization in office workers with chronic neck pain

This study aimed to assess pain sensitization in individual office workers with chronic neck pain through simple bedside quantitative sensory tests (QST) and to associate the findings with pain intensity and pain catastrophizing.

One hundred-and-four office workers with chronic neck pain were assessed using pressure pain threshold (PPT) considering pain sensitive if PPTs were lower than 155 kPa in the upper trapezius and 245 kPa in the tibialis anterior. Pain sensitive to temporal summation of pain (TSP) was considered if there was a difference of two points in the visual analogue scale (VAS) comparing the first and last stimulus. Pain sensitive was considered to conditioned pain modulation (CPM) if the CPM-effect was less than -7.5%. Pain intensity and catastrophizing were measured using VAS and with the Pain Catastrophizing Scale.

There was at least one pain sensitive QST finding in 66 office workers (63.5%). TSP findings were the most common (48.1%), followed by PPT's (31.7%) and CPM (20.2%). Based on the QST findings, office workers were divided based on the number of individual QST findings, and higher pain intensity and pain catastrophizing scores were found in office workers with one (N = 38, P < 0.05) or two (N = 28, P < 0.05) compared with office workers with no QST findings (N = 38).

This study demonstrated that most office workers with chronic neck pain exhibit either widespread pressure hyperalgesia, facilitated TSP or impaired CPM, indicating pain sensitization within the central nervous system. This was associated with increased clinical pain and pain catastrophizing rumination scores.