Psychological factors and pain catastrophizing in men with chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CP/CPPS): a meta-analysis.

Background: Chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CP/CPPS) is a chronic disease with a variety of psychosocial and somatic symptoms. CP/CPPS has substantial health care costs with unclear etiology, which may be caused by psychosocial factors. Moreover, previous studies suggested that cognitive processes played a crucial role in the perception of somatic pain. Therefore, the aim of this meta-analysis was to analyze the psychosocial characteristics in men with CP/CPPS, especially the symptom of pain catastrophizing.

Methods: Relevant publications were searched in different databases including PubMed, MEDLINE, EMBASE, Google Scholar and the Cochran Library using the search terms of "Chronic prostatitis", "Chronic pelvic pain syndrome", "Psychosocial" and "Catastrophizing". The prevalence of psychological factors and pain catastrophizing in men with CP/CPPS were extracted and calculated.

Results: Ten studies inclusive of 1,308 patients were included. Analysis of NIH-CPSI scores showed that the severity of CP/CPPS was 23.20 (95% CI: 21.13-25.28). The severity of pain catastrophizing was 13.81 (95% CI: 9.83-17.79) estimated by coping strategies questionnaire (CSQ), while the severity of pain catastrophizing was 24.83 (95% CI: 9.19-40.47) estimated by pain catastrophizing scale (PCS). The prevalence of psychosocial symptom was 0.43 (95% CI: 0.32-0.55), while the prevalence of pain catastrophizing was 0.26 (95% CI: 0.21-0.31).

Conclusions: The psychological factors and pain catastrophizing in men with CP/CPPS was serious. Furthermore, the prevalence of psychosocial symptom and pain catastrophizing was high. There might be a link between pain catastrophizing and somatic symptoms in CPPS. Thus, further prospective studies are needed to evaluate the importance of psychosocial factors in symptom severity of CP/CPPS.