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Updated: Jul 8, 2025
Author Spotlight: Quantifying Pain Experience – An Illustrative Approach Using the Pain Body Diagram
Published on: July 7, 2023
Self-Reported Pain Treatment Practices Among U.S. and Canadian Adults: Findings From a Population Survey
Anna Zajacova1, Alvaro Pereira Filho2, Merita Limani1
1Department of Sociology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada.
Background And Objectives:
Pain treatments and their efficacy have been studied extensively. Yet surprisingly little is known about the types of treatments, and combinations of treatments, that community-dwelling adults use to manage pain, as well as how treatment types are associated with individual characteristics and national-level context. To fill this gap, we evaluated self-reported pain treatment types among community-dwelling adults in the United States and Canada. We also assessed how treatment types correlate with individuals' pain levels, sociodemographic characteristics, and country of residence, and identified unique clusters of adults in terms of treatment combinations.
Research Design And Methods:
We used the 2020 "Recovery and Resilience" United States-Canada general online survey with 2 041 U.S. and 2 072 Canadian community-dwelling adults. Respondents selected up to 10 pain treatment options including medication, physical therapy, exercise, etc., and an open-ended item was available for self-report of any additional treatments. Data were analyzed using descriptive, regression-based, and latent class analyses.
Results:
Over-the-counter (OTC) medication was reported most frequently (by 55% of respondents, 95% CI 53%-56%), followed by "just living with pain" (41%, 95% CI 40%-43%) and exercise (40%, 95% CI 38%-41%). The modal response (29%) to the open-ended item was cannabis use. Pain was the most salient correlate, predicting a greater frequency of all pain treatments. Country differences were generally small; a notable exception was alcohol use, which was reported twice as often among U.S. versus Canadian adults. Individuals were grouped into 5 distinct clusters: 2 groups relied predominantly on medication (prescription or OTC), another favored exercise and other self-care approaches, one included adults "just living with" pain, and the cluster with the highest pain levels employed all modalities heavily.
Discussion And Implications:
Our findings provide new insights into recent pain treatment strategies among North American adults and identify population subgroups with potentially unmet need for more adaptive and effective pain management.
