Pain Assessment in Chinese Parkinson's Disease Patients Using King's Parkinson's Disease Pain Scale

To assess Parkinson's disease (PD)-related pain using the Chinese translation of King's Parkinson's disease Pain Scale (KPPS).

A cohort of 200 patients with primary PD was recruited for this study. Their demographic and clinical features, including age, disease duration, levodopa equivalent daily dose (LEDD), and scores on the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale-III (UPDRS III), Hoehn-Yahr Scale (H&Y), Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Activities of Daily Living Scale (ADL), Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD), Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAMA), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and KPPS, were recorded.

The prevalence of PD-related pain was 44.5%. Among the patients with PD-related pain, the average KPPS score was 41.2 ± 26.8. Pain was most commonly located in the lower limbs (60.7%), upper limbs (22.5%) and waist (21.3%). The most common pain type was musculoskeletal pain (68.5%). Compared with the PD group without pain, the PD group with pain had a longer disease duration (p = 0.022), higher LEDD (p = 0.008), higher UPDRSIII score (p = 0.018), higher H&Y stage (p = 0.003), higher HAMD score (p < 0.001), higher HAMA score (p < 0.001), lower ADL score (p = 0.046) and higher PSQI score (p < 0.001). PD-related pain was correlated with the H&Y stage and the PSQI score (p < 0.05). Cut-off points of 0, 34, and 70 were obtained to discriminate pain severity levels between no pain, mild, moderate, and severe pain, respectively.

Chinese version of KPPS is not only an easy tool for characterization and scoring of pain in PD patients but also has the ability to distinguish between different levels of pain severity.