Objectives: To compare measures of pain intensity, pain interference, use of pain-coping strategies, conditioned pain modulation, inflammation, and subjective and social well-being in adults with spinal cord injury (SCI) and chronic neuropathic (NP) versus chronic musculoskeletal (MSK) pain. Methods: A natural groups, cross-sectional study design was used, with analyses of baseline data from the Exercise Guideline Promotion and Implementation in Chronic Spinal Cord Injury (EPIC-SCI) trial (NCT04160858). The International Spinal Cord Injury Pain Basic Data Set (version 2.0) was administered during an interview to 35 men and 11 women with chronic SCI (Mage 50.6, SD 14.1; Myears post injury 16.5, SD 12.8). Participants completed standardized questionnaire measures of pain, pain coping, subjective well-being, and social well-being, provided a blood sample, and underwent conditioned pain modulation testing. Participants were grouped according to their primary pain problem: NP or MSK. Results: Participants whose primary pain problem was NP reported significantly greater pain intensity and pain-coping strategy use and showed more pain modulation and a different pattern of subjective well-being measures compared to participants with an MSK primary pain problem (Ps .05). Differences in overall bodily pain and proinflammatory cytokine concentrations were medium to large, and differences in pain interference and social well-being were small and not statistically significant (Ps .11). Conclusion: This is the first study to compare a comprehensive set of biopsychosocial variables across pain phenotypes in adults with chronic SCI. The results contribute to a deeper understanding of SCI pain phenotypes and their characteristics.
Ginis et al. (Sat,) studied this question.