Acute and chronic musculoskeletal pain among older adults in a rural area in Southern Brazil: who suffers most?

Abstract

Abstract Introduction: Musculoskeletal pain is frequent in the elderly, but it is little known in rural residents. Objective: To estimate the prevalence, intensity and associated factors of acute and chronic pain in the neck, upper back, lower back and knee of the older adults. Method: Cross-sectional study carried out on a cohort of older adults in the rural area of the municipality of Rio Grande (RS), Brazil. To investigate the outcomes, a structured questionnaire and an anatomical model were used. Descriptive and bivariate analyses were performed and crude and adjusted multinomial regression was used to verify associated factors, following a hierarchical model. Results: The prevalence of acute and chronic pain in each region was, respectively, 11.9 and 12.5% in the neck; 14.3 and 14.1% upper back; 14.1 and 15.4% lower back; 15.8 and 23.0% in the knees. Being female and having arthritis/arthrosis were associated with acute pain. Being female, having worked with pesticides and fishing, having hypertension, arthritis/arthrosis and self-assessing health as regular and bad/very bad were associated with chronic pain. Conclusions: We found a high prevalence of acute and chronic pain. Identification of those at greater risk of having worse symptoms together with pain duration can help providing more appropriate care.

Keywords

• musculoskeletal pain
• chronic pain
• acute pain
• older adults.