“…Comorbidity of anxiety and depression is highly prevalent in the general population (33), among ICPs (10,34) as well as in our study population. This anxious-depressive state has been recently conceptualized as a form of chronic inflammation (64), which may cause an increase in chronic pain, with itself considered to be an inflammation-based physical condition (65,66). Importantly, the issue of the role of inflammation in pain has yet to be resolved (67)(68)(69)(70).…”