The Prevalence Rate of Chronic Pain and some of its Associations among the Employees of a Big Industrial Company in Tehran

  This paper presents the findings of two studies examining the prevalence rates of chronic persistent and chronic recurrent pain and the impact of these two types of chronic pain on several aspects of patients’ lives. 1175 subjects (98% male and 2% female) participated in the first study. Thirty- nine percent (454 subjects) of the total sample reported some sort of pain that had lasted a whole day or more over the past 6 months, yielding a prevalence rate of 39% for their pain experience over the past 6 months. Of these 454 subjects, 163 subjects (or 14% of the total sample) reported chronic persistent pain and 176 subjects (or 15% of the original sample) reported chronic recurrent pain. Two- hundred and twenty nine male subjects who meet the criteria for chronic persistent and chronic recurrent pain participated in the second study. These subjects rated their social and recreational activities as well as their job and marital satisfaction, currently and before pain began. The patients also reported the amount of time spent sleeping in 24 hour day at the time of the study and before pain began. Using paired samples t- test procedures, significant differences emerged for all measures. Specifically, at the time of the study patients reported less social and recreational activities (t=-8.91, p<.0001), compared to before pain began. In addition, at the time of the study patients reported lower levels of job satisfaction (t=-8.76, p<.0001) and lower levels of marital satisfaction (t=-6.71, p<.0001). Patients also reported less time spent sleeping at the time of the study, compared to before pain began (t=-7.01, p<.0001). The above findings cofirmed the results of previous studies, mostly conducted in Western societies. That is, chronic pain has negative impacts on many aspects of patient’s life, including social and recreational activities as well as job and marital satisfaction. Furthermore, from the findings of the present study it can be concluded that the experience of chronic is associated with sleep problems. The possible clinical significance of these findings will be discussed.