Pain, Anxiety, and Quality of Life of COVID-19 Survivors with Myofascial Pain Syndrome: A cross sectional study.
Tugce Pasin, Bilinc Dogruoz Karatekin, Ozge Pasin
PMID 36710233WHAT IT FOUND
Adults with chronic trapezius myofascial pain who had PCR-positive symptomatic COVID-19 within 3 months reported worse pain, neck disability, anxiety, and quality of life than those without COVID symptoms.
The study cannot show COVID caused this.
Key findings
01The myofascial pain syndrome plus recent PCR-positive symptomatic COVID-19 group had higher anxiety scores and more moderate or severe anxiety than the myofascial pain syndrome group.
02The myofascial pain syndrome plus recent PCR-positive symptomatic COVID-19 group had higher pain intensity, Neck Pain and Disability, and Nottingham Health Profile scores than the myofascial pain syndrome group.
03The groups did not differ significantly in age, body mass, stature, BMI, pain duration, sex, or employment status.
STILL TO COME
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What it does not show
The study is cross-sectional and cannot show that COVID-19 caused worse outcomes. No group had COVID-19 without myofascial pain syndrome, and time since infection was not recorded for all patients. The sample was a convenience sample of 80 patients from one outpatient setting, and the authors identified small sample size as a major limitation. Only trapezius myofascial pain syndrome was studied, so results may not apply to trigger points in other muscles or to patients with excluded conditions such as fibromyalgia or cervical radiculopathy. Outcomes were self-reported, and no adjusted analysis for possible confounders was described. The Nottingham Health Profile scoring direction is unclear: the paper states higher section scores mean better health, but it also reports higher scores and worse quality of life in the myofascial pain syndrome plus recent PCR-positive symptomatic COVID-19 group.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that COVID-19 worsened myofascial pain syndrome. The study was cross-sectional, did not record time since infection for all patients, and had no group with COVID-19 without myofascial pain syndrome, so it cannot separate cause from association.