Antenatal socioeconomic status of childhood family and the risk of pain spreading (ROPS) in early and mid-adulthood - a descriptive study from the northern Finland birth cohort 1966.

Objective: The Risk of Pain Spreading (ROPS) is a six-item tool capturing key data-driven prognostic factors for chronic pain and its spreading. Higher values on the ROPS indicate a higher risk. Early factors potentially associated with the ROPS are unknown. We aimed to examine the associations between antenatal socioeconomic status of childhood family (antenatal SES) and ROPS at ages 31 and 46 years.

Methods: The study was based on the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966 and previously formulated latent clusters of antenatal family SES: Highest status (the reference), Small, Larger, Average wealth, and Rural families. The ROPS ranged from zero (the reference) to two or more points out of six. A multinomial regression model was used to identify antenatal SES clusters associated with ROPS.

Results: At 31 years (n = 8252), only the Larger families cluster was associated with having accumulated points (two or more) (Odds ratio [OR]: 1.46, 95 % Confidence Interval [CI]: 1.14-1.87) on the ROPS compared to the Highest status families cluster. Corresponding finding was observed at 46 years (n = 6245), but the Small families and Average wealth families clusters were also associated with this outcome. The association of Larger families cluster was, however, the strongest (OR 1.48, 95 % CI 1.16-1.89).

Conclusions: Offspring born into families with ≥5 members are likely to accumulate higher sums of key data-driven prognostic factors for worse pain across the life course until middle age. In future, associations between antenatal SES and pain would be important to be examined in a light of the ROPS.