Women’s experiences of the journey to chronic widespread pain: a qualitative study

Abstract

Background: Chronic widespread pain (CWP) is a musculoskeletal disorder that affects approximately 10% of the population. It is more common in women than in men. It is important to understand how CWP develops and how it is maintained in order to prevent poor pain prognosis. Long term studies have shown that a mere part improves over time or fluctuates in their CWP condition. Female gender is one of the factors associated with persistence of CWP, suggesting men and women may experience their journey to CWP differently. The aim of the study was to explore women's experiences of the journey to CWP. Methods: 19 women between 45 and 67 years of age who had not reported CWP in the EPIPAIN survey in 1995, but reported CWP in 2016, participated in the study. Data was collected through individual interviews, where openended questions were used to explore the women's experiences of their pain journey. The interviews were analyzed with a manifest qualitative content analysis. Results: The women described their journey to CWP in terms of triggering, aggravating, and consolidating factors, from which three different categories emerged. Experiencing that environmental circumstances affect the pain journey refers to factors outside the women's immediate control, which appeared as unmanageable work-related demands, lack of social support, unfavorable physical environments, and traumatic events. Experiencing that lifestyle affects the pain journey refers to events that are consciously or unconsciously carried out by the women, including different levels of physical efforts and unfavorable behaviors. Experiencing that personal attributes affect the pain journey refers to the women's characteristics in terms of an anxious state of mind and adverse biological impact. Conclusions: The women experienced that environmental circumstances, lifestyle, and personal attributes affected their CWP. How these adversities influenced the pain journey varied among the women. These findings show that women are conscious of the complexity of the condition and can describe the broad context of their pain journey. This study confirms the complexity of pain progress and highlights the individual's awareness of this complexity, which is important to consider when introducing interventions, and when expecting compliance to interventions.

Experiences of Health-Promoting Activities among Individuals with Knee Pain: The Halland Osteoarthritis Cohort

“…Previous research has found that work–life imbalance is the main factor in lower perceived health among individuals on, or at risk of going on, sick leave [ 53 ]. Moreover, women with CWP have described how unmanageable work-related demands had a negative impact on the pain [ 54 ]. Having too much work strain or feeling pressured to work more than their pain allowed aggravated the pain.…”

“…Safeguarding healthy relationships was experienced as essential to managing life stressors and balancing everyday life, including family, peers, and the relationship with oneself. A qualitative study exploring women’s experiences of CWP found that lack of social support had a negative impact and triggering effects on CWP [ 54 ]. Triggering factors included the experience of distrust, not being understood and social norms expectations, such as feelings of having to oblige everyone else, at the expense of oneself.…”

Risk Factor Analysis of Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSDS) in Woman Shellfish Peeler (Geloina Erosa) in Pantai Cermin District

“…Psychosocial risk factors include psychological suffering, insufficient social support, and limited decision-making authority (Keyaerts et al, 2022). Social factors include culture, beliefs, and cultural beliefs Keyaerts (2022), and individual characteristics consist of things like body mass index, age, gender, lifestyle, and living environment (Svensson et al, 2020). Given the influence of various risk factors on the incidence of MSDs, the implementation of prevention and control programs and measures requires the simultaneous identification and control of a series of risk factors (Tang et al, 2022) Some studies explain that Age, Length of work, Length of work, Gender, Workload, Repetition, Psychosocial factors, Work posture, Work climate, Stress, Body mass Index, Exercise frequency, History of muscle complaints, Education Anxiety, Fear, charity, company size, duration of work can be a risk factor for occurrence Muscoloskelatal Disorders (MSDs) (Shobur et al, 2019).…”