A 23 year old male patient that I encountered came in for an episode of sharp chest pain and shortness of breath. However, when further evaluated, the patient also mentioned how he has been stressed with his family. I wanted to look further into if this patient’s symptomatic pain had anything to do with his family situation. Upon my research, I found an article that looks into a patient with chronic pain and tries to see if there was any association of whether or not the family was functioning properly.
This study consisted of 201 participants that either had chronic localized pain (CLP) or chronic widespread pain (CWP). A previous study had shown that patients that have CLP are more likely to progress towards having CWP, and patients with CWP have increased levels of disability, psychological distress, and lower quality of life when compared to patients with CLP.
This study was done in Japan and participants had to fill out a questionnaire about both their pain and how their family functioned as a whole. The family functioning was assessed using the Family Assesment Device. Results included that when comparing the demographics of the participants involved, patients with CWP were more likely to be younger and female when compared to CLP. The conclusion that was made was that CWP was found to have lower family functioning status when compared to CLP. Discussions were made about how early intervention, such as family therapy, should be initiated as soon as possible in a patient with CLP to prevent further pain and disability of the patient.
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