South African men and women living with HIV have similar distributions of pain sites.

Background: No studies have investigated sex differences in the location and number of pain sites in people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) (PLWH), despite evidence that women, in general, bear a greater burden of pain than men.

Aim: To determine sex differences in the location and number of pain sites, and whether there were demographic or disease-related differences in the number of pain sites.

Setting: South African tertiary hospital HIV clinics and a community healthcare centreMethods: We conducted a retrospective analysis of records from South African PLWH who had pain.