Epidemiology

Chronic pain is common and has a significant impact on quality of life. Prevalence increases with increasing age (especially for pain due to musculoskeletal causes), so the number of people living with chronic pain worldwide will increase as life expectancy increases.[4]

In a 2016 survey, an estimated 20.4% of adults in the US (50 million) had chronic pain.[5] The 2017 Health Survey for England reported that 34% of respondents had chronic pain.[6] Age-adjusted prevalence is higher in women, adults not currently employed, and people living in deprived areas.[5][6]

The 2017 Global Burden of Disease study concluded that low back pain and migraine are two of the three leading causes of years lived with disability worldwide.[4]

  • Myofascial pain occured in about 30% of patients in one general medical clinic and is usually the most common diagnosis in specialty pain clinics.[7] It can occur at any age, but is most common in older people, as well as athletes, hard physical laborers, and sedentary workers.[8]

  • Osteoarthritis is one of the most common chronic pain disorders. Estimates of prevalence of arthritis in a 2002 survey were 8% to 16% of the population in Europe and the US; prevalence of osteoarthritis is likely to have increased since then.[4][9]

  • Neuropathic pain has been reported to be the 14th most common pain complaint seen in general practice.[10] Accurate estimates of the prevalence of neuropathic pain are difficult to obtain due to its heterogeneous nature; surveys using screening tools have produced estimates of between 2% and 12%.[11][12]

  • Fibromyalgia prevalence in the general population may vary between 0.2% and 6.6%.[13] Prevalence is higher in women than in men. Using data from national registries, an estimated 5 million adults in the US have fibromyalgia.[14] Age of onset is typically between 20 and 60 years, with an average age of 35 years; prevalence increases with age.

  • Headache is among the top 10 reasons for women to seek a primary care office visit in national surveys in the US.[15] Even though tension-type headache is the most common chronic headache identified in community surveys, migraine is most commonly reported among patients seeking headache treatment.[16][17] Worldwide, an estimated 2.3 billion people have tension-type headache and 1.3 billion have migraine; the latter is the leading cause of disability among neurologic disorders.[4] The prevalence of cluster headache has been estimated at around one person in 500.[18]

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