Biopsychosocial Factors Predicting Pain Among Individuals Experiencing the Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19).
Aylin Bilgin, Gulsah Kesik, Leyla Özdemir
PMID 34893431WHAT IT FOUND
In people with recent COVID-19, higher fatigue, anxiety, and lower activity were associated with more pain.
Women also reported more pain.
Key findings
01Participants reported mean pain of 4.04 points on a 0-10 scale.
02Fatigue and anxiety were directly associated with pain (β = 0.718 and β = 0.583, p < .001).
03Higher POAM-P scores, meaning lower activity, were directly associated with pain (β = 0.380, p < .001).
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
This was a cross-sectional online survey, so it shows associations at one time and cannot prove that fatigue, anxiety, or low activity caused pain. Participants were recruited through social media and snowball sampling, and they had to have internet access and at least primary education, so the sample may not represent people without these. The sample was young and mostly female, so the findings may not apply to older adults or men. Data were collected months after diagnosis and relied on recall, so symptom memories may be inaccurate. No pain treatment was tested, so the paper cannot show that reducing fatigue, anxiety, or activity limitation will lower pain. The paper's text and table disagree about chronic disease: the text says pain was higher with chronic disease, but the table lists a lower mean pain score for participants with chronic disease.
Declared interests
The authors declared no competing interests.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as evidence that treating fatigue, anxiety, or low activity will reduce COVID-19 pain. The study measured associations in a survey and did not test any intervention.