Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Multicenter Study
. 2014 Sep;155(9):1836-1845.
doi: 10.1016/j.pain.2014.06.013. Epub 2014 Jun 24.

Effect of pain location and duration on life function in the year after motor vehicle collision

Andrey V Bortsov  1 , Timothy F Platts-Mills, David A Peak, Jeffrey S Jones, Robert A Swor, Robert M Domeier, David C Lee, Niels K Rathlev, Phyllis L Hendry, Roger B Fillingim, Samuel A McLean
Affiliations
Multicenter Study

Effect of pain location and duration on life function in the year after motor vehicle collision

Andrey V Bortsov et al. Pain. 2014 Sep.

Abstract

Persistent musculoskeletal pain is common after motor vehicle collision (MVC) and often results in substantial disability. The objective of this study was to identify distributions of post-MVC pain that most interfere with specific life functions and that have the greatest interference with aggregate life function. Study data were obtained from a prospective longitudinal multicenter emergency department-based cohort of 948 European Americans experiencing MVC. Overall pain (0-10 numeric rating scale [NRS]), pain in each of 20 body regions (0-10 NRS), and pain interference (Brief Pain Inventory, 0-10 NRS) were assessed 6 weeks, 6 months, and 1 year after MVC. After adjustment for overall pain intensity, an axial distribution of pain caused the greatest interference with most specific life functions (R(2)=0.15-0.28, association P values of <.001) and with overall function. Axial pain explained more than twice as much variance in pain interference as other pain distributions. However, not all patients with axial pain had neck pain. Moderate or severe low back pain was as common as neck pain at week 6 (prevalence 37% for each) and overlapped with neck pain in only 23% of patients. Further, pain across all body regions accounted for nearly twice as much of the variance in pain interference as neck pain alone (60% vs 34%). These findings suggest that studies of post-MVC pain should not focus on neck pain alone.

Keywords: Motor vehicle collision; Musculoskeletal pain; Pain interference; Whiplash.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flowchart of the study.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Prevalence of pain by body region six weeks after motor vehicle collision, and proportion of patients who had pain in each body region who had widespread pain. Widespread pain was defined according to American College of Rheumatology 1990 criteria [57].
Figure 3
Figure 3
Proportion of total variance (R-squared) in interference scales explained by regional pain factors, adjusted for participant age and sex.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Association between pain and pain interference stratified by a) age, b) sex, c) widespread pain and d) time from trauma. Dots represent mean interference and vertical bars represent bootstrap-derived 95% confidence intervals for interference for each discrete value of the overall pain score. Boxplots represent median, lower, upper quartile and range for pain (horizontal boxplots at the top) and for pain interference (vertical boxplots at the right). M=male; F=female; WP+ =widespread pain present; WP− =no widespread pain; W6=week 6; Y1=year 1.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Amris K, Waehrens EE, Jespersen A, Bliddal H, Danneskiold-Samsoe B. Observation-based assessment of functional ability in patients with chronic widespread pain: a cross-sectional study. Pain. 2011;152(11):2470–2476. - PubMed
    1. Andersson HI, Ejlertsson G, Leden I, Rosenberg C. Characteristics of subjects with chronic pain, in relation to local and widespread pain report. A prospective study of symptoms, clinical findings and blood tests in subgroups of a geographically defined population. Scand J Rheumatol. 1996;25(3):146–154. - PubMed
    1. Baker SP, O’Neill B, Haddon W, Long WB. The injury severity score: a method for describing patients with multiple injuries and evaluating emergency care. J Trauma. 1974;14:187–196. - PubMed
    1. Berglund A, Alfredsson L, Jensen I, Cassidy JD, Nygren A. The association between exposure to a rear-end collision and future health complaints. J Clin Epidemiol. 2001;54(8):851–856. - PubMed
    1. Bergman S, Jacobsson LT, Herrstrom P, Petersson IF. Health status as measured by SF-36 reflects changes and predicts outcome in chronic musculoskeletal pain: a 3-year follow up study in the general population. Pain. 2004;108(1–2):115–123. - PubMed

Publication types