Background and Aims: On the background of making progress in understanding chronic pain a simplified Graded Chronic Pain Scale-Revised (GCPS-R) was developed. The primary aim was to differentiate mild, bothersome and high-impact chronic pain and to investigate health literacy among chronic pain patients. In addition, the purpose was to improve understanding and describe socio- demographics and pain characteristics of high-impact chronic pain.
Methods: Self-patient-reported questionnaire was collected from general practitioners. GCPS-R for graduation of chronic pain and health literacy (HLS-EU-Q16) for the domain of healthcare, disease prevention and health promotion. Chi-squared test and Kruskal-Wallis test was used to estimate association of GCPS-R with health literacy and socio-demographics characteristics.
Results: Overall 210 responded to the survey, where 196 individual was defined as having chronic pain and included in the analysis. There was no significant difference in-between GCPS-R and HLS- EU-Q16. Overall distribution of GCPS-R was 13 % mild-, 32 % bothersome- and 55 % high-impact chronic pain. Persons with mild- versus bothersome chronic pain differed significantly on 2 of 11 indicators (education level and unable to work). Persons with bothersome- versus high-impact chronic pain differed significantly on 3 of 11 indicators (working situation, painful body sites and unable to work) Persons with high-impact- versus mild chronic pain differed significantly on 5 of 11 indicators (education level, unable to work, painful body sites, frequency in non-prescription medication and opioid). Mean age was 54 years, and 64 % was women. Among 26 % pain duration was reported as more than ten years and mean of painful body site was 2,5. More than 25 % reported they highest completed education level was vocational education and over 40 % was retired. More than 35 % reported daily use of non-prescription medication and 15 % used opioid. Overall, 4 in 10 respondents faced difficulties in accessing, understanding, appraising and applying health information.
Conclusion: In this article we presented the distribution of GCPS-R and a relatively highly high- impact chronic pain group. There was no significant difference in-between GCPS-R and HLS-EU- Q16. High-impact chronic pain is strongly associated with a high painful body site, education level, not been able to work, and frequency in drug use.
Keywords: Chronic pain assessment, Primary care, questionnaires, Health literacy.