A summary of pain and pain-related variables in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children.

Background: To study pain, data on pain characteristics, possible triggers and consequences - such as the impact of pain on people's lives - need to be available. When not collated, described and/or organised in a systematic manner, it can be difficult to assess how useful an existing dataset may be for one's project. This data note describes and categorises the complex and multi-modal indices of pain available in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC).

How Well Can We Measure Chronic Pain Impact in Existing Longitudinal Cohort Studies? Lessons Learned.

Multiple large longitudinal cohorts provide opportunities to address questions about predictors of pain and pain trajectories, even when not anticipated in the design of the historical databases. This focus article uses 2 empirical examples to illustrate the processes of assessing the measurement properties of data from large cohort studies to answer questions about pain. In both examples, data were screened to select candidate variables that captured the impact of chronic pain on self-care activities, productivity, and social activities.

Social Determinants and Consequences of Pain: Toward Multilevel, Intersectional, and Life Course Perspectives.

Despite wide endorsement of a biopsychosocial framework for pain, social aspects of pain remain rarely addressed in the context of pain prevention and management. In this review, we aim to 1) examine the broad scope of social determinants and consequences of pain and their interactions across multiple levels of organization, and 2) provide a framework synthesizing existing concepts and potential areas for future work on social aspects of pain, drawing upon socioecological, intersectional, and life course approaches. Integrating interdisciplinary theory and evidence, we outline pathways through which multilevel social factors and pain may affect each other over time.

A developmental framework for understanding the influence of sex and gender on health: Pediatric pain as an exemplar.

Sex differences are a robust finding in many areas of adult health, including cardiovascular disease, psychiatric disorders, and chronic pain. However, many sex differences are not consistently observed until after the onset of puberty. This has led to the hypothesis that hormones are primary contributors to sex differences in health outcomes, largely ignoring the relative contributions of early developmental influences, emerging psychosocial factors, gender, and the interaction between these variables.

Sensing behavior change in chronic pain: a scoping review of sensor technology for use in daily life.

Technology offers possibilities for quantification of behaviors and physiological changes of relevance to chronic pain, using wearable sensors and devices suitable for data collection in daily life contexts. We conducted a scoping review of wearable and passive sensor technologies that sample data of psychological interest in chronic pain, including in social situations. Sixty articles met our criteria from the 2783 citations retrieved from searching.

Challenges with embedding an integrated sex and gender perspective into pain research: Recommendations and opportunities.

The focus of this article, within this BBI horizons special issue, is on sex, gender, and pain. We summarise what is currently known about sex- and gender-related variations in pain, exploring intersectional biological and psychosocial mechanisms, and highlight gaps in knowledge and understanding. Five key challenges with the exploration of sex and gender in pain research are presented, relating to: conceptual imprecision, research bias, limitations with binary descriptions, integrating sex and gender, and timely adoption/implementation of good research practice.

The use of EQ-5D-5L as a patient-reported outcome measure in evaluating community rehabilitation services in Alberta, Canada.

Background: The purpose of this study was to describe the characteristics and health-related quality of life (HRQL) of patients accessing community rehabilitation services in Alberta, Canada, using routinely collected EQ-5D-5L data, and explore factors associated with the impact of these services.

Methods: A retrospective, longitudinal, observational design was used. Patients completed the EQ-5D-5L and demographic questions at intake and end of rehabilitation care.

Psychological therapies delivered remotely for the management of chronic pain (excluding headache) in adults.

Background: Chronic pain (pain lasting three months or more) is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage. Common types (excluding headache) include back pain, fibromyalgia, and neuropathic pain. Access to traditional face-to-face therapies can be restricted by healthcare resources, geography, and cost.

The changing profile of SARS-CoV-2 serology in Irish blood donors.

Background: The present study aimed to investigate the progression of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in Ireland over the first three waves of infection.

Method: A selection of blood donor serum samples collected between February 2020 and December 2021 were analysed by various commercially available serological assays for antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 ( = 15,066).

Results: An increase in seropositivity was observed between wave 1 (February to September 2020) and wave 2 (November and December 2020) of 2.

Cellular and humoral immunogenicity of the COVID-19 vaccine and COVID-19 disease severity in individuals with immunodeficiency.

Background: A well-coordinated adaptive immune response is crucial for limiting COVID-19 disease. Some individuals with immunodeficiency are at a high risk of developing severe COVID-19. Therefore, the development of standardized methods for measuring different arms of the vaccine response in the setting of immunodeficiency is of particular interest.

Comparing the Effects of Thought Suppression and Focused Distraction on Pain-Related Attentional Biases in Men and Women.

Increasing attentional focus away from pain can affect pain experience, suggesting that cognitive strategies that move attentional allocation may be a moderator of pain. In a pre-post-design, the present study examined the effects of 2 cognitive strategies used in pain contexts, thought suppression and focused distraction, on subsequent pain-related attention. Thought suppression was hypothesized to increase pain-related attention, whereas focused distraction was expected to reduce it.

Barriers to Prescribing Opioids in the Management of Chronic Breathlessness in COPD: A Review.

In people with COPD breathlessness is a common symptom and if mistreated can result in poor physical health and reduced quality of life. While it is important to manage the breathlessness using non-pharmacological management, persistent breathlessness may be treated with opioids. However, some physicians are reluctant to prescribe opioids to manage breathlessness in COPD.

Implementation of EQ-5D-5L as a routine outcome measure in Community Outpatient and Specialized Rehabilitation Services.

Rehabilitation is a person-centred approach that optimizes functioning to reduce impairments in individuals with illness, injury or disability. Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) have a role in rehabilitation to inform clinical practice, enhance patient-centered care, support health services programming, direct performance measurement, and contribute to quality improvement. A Canadian provincial health system implemented a Rehabilitation Model of Care that provides a real-world perspective on the adoption of a standardized PROM, the EuroQol EQ-5D-5L, in the community rehabilitation setting.

SARS-CoV-2 Antibody Testing in Health Care Workers: A Comparison of the Clinical Performance of Three Commercially Available Antibody Assays.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) antibodies are an excellent indicator of past COVID-19 infection. As the COVID-19 pandemic progresses, retained sensitivity over time is an important quality in an antibody assay that is to be used for the purpose of population seroprevalence studies. We compared 5,788 health care worker (HCW) serum samples by using two serological assays (Abbott SARS-CoV-2 anti-nucleocapsid immunoglobulin G (IgG) and Roche anti-SARS-CoV-2 anti-nucleocapsid total antibody) and a subset of samples (all Abbott assay positive or grayzone,  = 485) on Wantai SARS-CoV-2 anti-spike antibody enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).

Attentional Biases Towards Body Expressions of Pain in Men and Women.

This study investigated whether there are gender differences in attention to bodily expressions of pain and core emotions. Three experiments are reported using the attentional dot probe task. Images of men and women displaying bodily expressions, including pain, were presented.

Ignoring space around a painful limb? No evidence for a body-related visuospatial attention bias in complex regional pain syndrome.

Background: Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) is a disorder of severe chronic pain in one or more limb(s). People with CRPS report unusual perceptions of the painful limb suggesting altered body representations, as well as difficulty attending to their affected limb (i.e.

Managing malnutrition in COPD: A review.

In the UK approximately 1.2 million people have COPD with around 25-40% being underweight and 35% have a severely low fat-free mass index. Measuring their body mass index is recommended and Health care professionals should endeavour to ensure that COPD patients are achieving their nutritional requirements.

The gender context of pain.

Pain is a major source of global suffering, with women bearing the greatest burden. Alongside biology, psychological and social factors, including gender, help explain these differences. However, there has been no direct attempt to develop a unified social psychological model of men and women's pain.

The Time Course of Facial Expression Recognition Using Spatial Frequency Information: Comparing Pain and Core Emotions.

We are able to recognize others' experience of pain from their facial expressions. However, little is known about what makes the recognition of pain possible and whether it is similar or different from core emotions. This study investigated the mechanisms underpinning the recognition of pain expressions, in terms of spatial frequency (SF) information analysis, and compared pain with 2 core emotions (ie, fear and happiness).

Gender differences in attention to pain body postures in a social context: a novel use of the bodies in the crowd task.

Pain signals the presence of potential harm, captures attention, and can inhibit performance on concurrent tasks. What is less well known, however, is whether such attentional capture also occurs in a wider social context, such as when observing people in pain. To explore this possibility, we adopted a novel social-cue detection methodology: the bodies-in-the-crowd task.