Millions living with pain - study

Tuesday June 21st, 2016

As many as 28 million adults in the UK may be living with chronic pain, researchers claim today.

The figure represents 43% of the British population - and is likely to increase with an ageing population, according to researchers at Imperial College, London, UK.

The findings, reported in BMJ Open, come from an analysis of previously published studies.

Researcher Dr Alan Fayaz, of the college's department of surgery and cancer, found 19 studies involving 140,000 adults.

He concluded that up to 14% of people live with severely disabling chronic pain, the equivalent of about eight million people.

Some 62% of those over the age of 75 live with chronic pain as do up to 30% of adults under the age of 40, he found. The problem affects women more than men.

He writes: “Such prevalence data does not itself define need for care or targets for prevention, but reliable information on prevalence will help to drive public health and healthcare policymakers’ prioritisation of this important cause of distress and disability in the general population."

BMJ Open 21 June 2016 [abstract]

Tags: Pain Relief | UK News

Printer friendly page