Abstract
Background
Pain and diabetes are related to the decreased self-rated health. The aim of this population-based study was to analyze how pain affects self-rated health among people aged 65 or older with and without type 2 diabetes.
Design
Population-based cross-sectional cohort study.
Setting
Inner Savo district, Finland.
Participants
Home-dwelling people 65 and older with diabetes, and age- and sex-matched control patients without diabetes were identified from electronic patient records in primary care. Questionnaires were sent home to 514 individuals with type 2 diabetes and 890 individuals without diabetes.
Measurements
The study participants rated their health with the Likert-type scale and the Visual Analog Scale (VAS). According to experienced pain, three groups were formed: (1) subjects without pain or with pain once a week at most, (2) pain more often than once a week, and (3) daily or continuous pain.
Results
When adjusted for propensity score, the decreased proportion of people with good self-rated health was associated with frequent pain (p < 0.001). No interaction between diabetes and pain was found (p = 0.55). Respectively, the decreasing ratings of self-rated health in VAS was associated with frequent pain (p < 0.001) without interaction (p = 0.14). Daily pain was associated similarly with poor self-rated health in people with and without diabetes.
Conclusions
Frequent pain independently and without interaction associated with self-rated health in older adults. Frequent pain may have more significant impact on self-rated health than diabetes. Preventing and treating frequent pain in older people with and without diabetes may have significant potential in retaining and improving self-rated health.
References
Verhaak PF, Kerssens JJ, Dekker J, Sorbi MJ, Bensing JM (1998) Prevalence of chronic benign pain disorder among adults: a review of the literature. Pain 77:231–239
Mäntyselkä PT, Turunen JH, Ahonen RS, Kumpusalo E (2003) Chronic pain and poor self-rated health. JAMA 290:2435–2442
Davies M, Brophy S, Williams R, Taylor A (2006) The prevalence, severity and impact of painful diabetic neuropathy in type 2 diabetes. Diabetes Care 29:1518–1522
Burner TW, Rosenthal AK (2009) Diabetes and rheumatic diseases. Curr Opin Rheumatol 1:50–54
McDaid O, Hanly MJ, Richardson K, Kee F, Kenny RA, Savva GM (2013) The effect of multiple chronic conditions on self-rated health, disability and quality of life among the older populations of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland: a comparison of two nationally representative cross-sectional surveys. BMJ Open 3:e002571. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2013-002571 (1 Open Access)
Wexler DJ, Porneala B, Chang Y, Huang ES, Huffman JC, Grant RW (2012) Diabetes differentially affects depression and self-rated health by age in the US. Diabetes Care 35:1575–1577
Idler EL, Benyamini Y (1997) Self-rated health and mortality: a review of twenty-seven community studies. J Health Soc Behav 38:21–37
DeSalvo KB, Bloser N, Reynolds K, He J, Muntner P (2006) Mortality prediction with a single general self-related health question: a meta-analysis. J Gen Intern Med 21:267–277
Scogging JF, Patrick DL (2009) The use of patient-reported outcomes instruments in registered clinical trials. Contemp Clin Trials 30:289–292
EuroQol Group (1990) EuroQol-a new facility for the measurement of health-related quality of life. Health Policy 16:199–208
Saunders JB, Aasland OG, Babor TF, De la Fuente JR, Grant M (1993) Development of the alcohol use disorders identification test (AUDIT): WHO collaborative project on early detection of persons with harmful alcohol consumption. Addiction 88:791–804
Kurlowicz L, Greenberg S (2007) The geriatric depression scale (GDS). AJN 107:67
Hicks VL, Stolarczyk LM, Heyward VH, Baumgartner RN (2000) Validation of near-infrared interactance and skinfold methods for estimating body composition of American Indian women. Med Sci Sports Exerc 32:531–539
Reyes-Gibby CC, Aday L, Cleeland C (2002) Impact of pain on self-rated health in the community-dwelling older adults. Pain 95:75–82
Sibille KT, McBeth J, Smith D, Wilkie R (2017) Allostatic load and pain severity in older adults: results from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Exp Gerontol 88:51–58
Carlsson AC, Andreasson AN, Wändell PE (2011) Poor self-rated health is not associated with a high total allostatic load in type 2 diabetic patients–but high blood pressure is. Diabetes Metab 37:446–451
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
MK wrote the manuscript and researched data. MH and JS researched data, contributed to the discussion, and edited the manuscript. PM researched data, wrote, and reviewed the manuscript. MT wrote and edited the manuscript. HK takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
Ethical approval
The study protocol of the ISDM (Inner-Savo Diabetes Mellitus) study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Northern Savo Hospital District, Kuopio, Finland.
Informed consent
For this type of this study, informed consent is not required.
Funding
This work was supported by the North Savo Cultural Foundation, which gave a personal Grant to M.K.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Karjalainen, M., Tiihonen, M., Kautiainen, H. et al. Pain and self-rated health in older people with and without type 2 diabetes. Eur Geriatr Med 9, 127–131 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41999-017-0017-z
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41999-017-0017-z