Prevalence and Determinants of Pain in Spinal Cord Injury During Initial Inpatient Rehabilitation: Data From the Dutch Spinal Cord Injury Database.

Objective: To describe the prevalence and characteristics of spinal cord injury (SCI)-related pain during initial inpatient rehabilitation and to investigate relationships with demographic and lesion characteristics.

Design: Cohort during inpatient rehabilitation.

Setting: Eight specialized SCI rehabilitation centers in the Netherlands.

Participants: Patients with newly acquired SCI admitted for inpatient rehabilitation between November 2013 and August 2019 (N=1432).

Interventions: Not applicable.

Main Outcome Measures: Presence of pain at admission and discharge. Logistic regression analyses were used to study the prevalence of pain related to sex, age, etiology, completeness, and level of injury.

Results: Data from 1432 patients were available. Of these patients 64.6% were male, mean age was 56.8 years, 59.9% had a nontraumatic SCI, 63.9% were classified as American Spinal Cord Injury Association Impairment Scale (AIS) D and 56.5% had paraplegia. Prevalence of pain was 61.2% at admission (40.6% nociceptive pain [NocP], 30.2% neuropathic pain [NeuP], 5.4% other pain) and 51.5% at discharge (26.0% NocP, 31.4% NeuP, 5.7% other pain). Having NocP at admission was associated with traumatic SCI. AIS B had a lower risk of NocP than AIS D at admission. Having NocP at discharge was associated with female sex and traumatic SCI. AIS C had a lower risk of NocP at discharge than AIS D. Having NeuP at admission was associated with female sex. Having NeuP at discharge was associated with female sex, age younger than 65 years vs age older than 75 years and tetraplegia.

Conclusions: SCI-related pain is highly prevalent during inpatient rehabilitation. Prevalence of NocP decreased during inpatient rehabilitation, and prevalence of NeuP stayed the same. Different patient and lesion characteristics were related to the presence of SCI-related pain. Healthcare professionals should be aware of these differences in screening patients on presence and development of pain during inpatient rehabilitation.