Prevalence of sleep disturbance and its relationship to pain in adults with chronic pain.

The study examined the prevalence and relationship between sleep disturbance and chronic pain. Research questions were: (1) What is the prevalence of sleep disturbance in adults with chronic pain, and how does this prevalence compare with healthy and insomniac adults? (2) What is the relationship between sleep disturbance and chronic pain? (3) What is the relationship of patient characteristics to sleep? This descriptive, correlational field study was done at an interdisciplinary pain clinic, sampling 99 adults, and using an 11-point pain scale and a visual analog sleep scale. For every disturbance item, more than 47% of subjects reported a score of 50 or higher, twice as high as those for healthy adults, indicating disrupted sleep.