Table 2.
Characteristics of VA patients with CNCP, comparing short-term variability subgroup to patients not included in short-term variability subgroup
| Short-term variability subgroup (N=4,336)* |
Not in short-term variability subgroup (N=8,598)** |
p-value | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Demographic characteristics | |||
| Age (years):Mean(SD) | 73.51 (7.42) | 72.93 (7.13) | <0.001 |
| Sex: Male | 4,154 (95.80) | 8,319 (96.76) | 0.006 |
| Race/Ethnicity | <0.001 | ||
| White(non-Hispanic) | 2,799 (64.55) | 5,687 (66.14) | |
| Black(non-Hispanic) | 862 (19.88) | 1,435 (16.69) | |
| Hispanic | 272 (6.27) | 484(5.63) | |
| Other | 188 (4.34) | 411 (4.78) | |
| Unknown | 215 (4.96) | 581 (6.76) | |
| Marital status | <0.001 | ||
| Married | 2,280 (52.58) | 5,126 (59.62) | |
| Divorced/Separated | 1,153 (26.59) | 1,995 (23.20) | |
| Single/Never Married | 268 (6.18) | 422 (4.91) | |
| Widowed | 635 (14.64) | 1,055 (12.27) | |
| Percent service-connected disability | <0.001 | ||
| Not service-connected | 1,731 (39.92) | 3,430 (39.89) | |
| Less than 50% | 551 (12.71) | 1,303 (15.15) | |
| 50% or more | 2,054 (47.37) | 3,865 (44.95) | |
| Clinical characteristics (12 months prior to index date): | |||
| Baseline pain intensity***: Mean(SD) | 5.34 (1.61) | 5.71 (1.57) | <0.001 |
| Selim comorbidity index score | <0.001 | ||
| 0–5 | 1,130 (26.06) | 3,785 (44.02) | |
| 6–10 | 2,098 (48.39) | 3,933 (45.74) | |
| 11–15 | 851 (19.63) | 761 (8.85) | |
| 16–24 | 257 (5.93) | 119 (1.38) | |
| Major surgery | 147 (3.39) | 189 (2.20) | <0.001 |
| Any Mental health diagnosis**** | 1,904 (43.91) | 3,357 (39.04) | <0.001 |
| Nicotine or substance use disorder | 739 (17.04) | 1,402 (16.31) | 0.287 |
| Pain diagnoses | |||
| Chronic neck/joint pain | 2,763 (63.72) | 5,114 (59.48) | <0.001 |
| Rheumatism/Arthritis/Gout | 2,905 (67.00) | 5,537 (64.40) | 0.003 |
| Fibromyalgia | 198 (4.57) | 306 (3.56) | 0.005 |
| Chronic lower back pain | 2,026 (46.73) | 3,974 (46.22) | 0.587 |
| Neuropathies | 1,228 (28.32) | 1,960 (22.80) | <0.001 |
| Headache/Migraine | 363 (8.37) | 614 (7.14) | 0.012 |
| Other musculoskeletal pain | 2,082 (48.02) | 3,535 (41.11) | <0.001 |
*
Short term variability subgroup = main study sample: Patients with two or more months which contained multiple numeric rating scale (NRS) pain intensity scores
**
Not in short term variability subgroup: Patients who had less than two months during the follow-up period in which there were two or more scores
***
Baseline pain intensity score is average of all monthly NRS pain scores beginning with first qualifying monthly pain score and ending with last qualifying monthly pain score prior to the index date.
****
Includes major depression, anxiety disorder, PTSD, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia