| GENDER DIFFERENCES IN THE
EPIDEMIOLOGY OF CHRONIC PAIN CONDITIONS
Linda LeResche, Sc.D., Department of
Oral Medicine, School of Dentistry, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
A review of the epidemiologic
literature indicates that definite age and sex differences exist in the prevalence of many
chronic pain conditions. Although women have higher overall prevalence rates for most
chronic pain conditions, the prevalence patterns by gender and stage of the life cycle
differ for different pain conditions. We have very little basic information on whether
these prevalence differences are due to different incidence (onset) rates, different
probabilities of recurrence, different durations of pain episodes (or some combination of
these factors) for women and men. However, because different types of pain conditions have
different age-sex prevalence patterns, these patterns may provide clues to possible
etiologic factors. For example, a pain condition such as migraine headache that is more
prevalent in women, shows a prevalence peak during the reproductive years and falls off
with age might be hormonally related, at least for some patients, whereas one that
continues to climb with age (such as joint pain) is less likely to be hormone related.
Thus, a systematic examination of the epidemiologic data may be an important step in
helping both basic and clinical pain researchers to generate hypotheses in our search for
a better understanding of chronic pain in both sexes.
| Links for more information about the
author(s): |
| Linda LeResche, Sc.D., Department of
Oral Medicine, School of Dentistry, University of Washington |
|
