Prevalence of Chronic Pain among University Students in Japan

Research Article

Austin Pain Relief. 2020; 3(1): 1007.

Prevalence of Chronic Pain among University Students in Japan

Sakakibara T¹, Mizuno T² and Kasai Y³*

¹Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Ise Red Cross Hospital, Ise, Japan

²Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Seirei Hamamatsu General Hospital, Hamamatsu, Japan

³Department of Orthopaedics, Faculty of Medicine, Khon Kaen University, Khon Kaen, Thailand

*Corresponding author: Yuichi Kasai, Department of Orthopaedics, Faculty of Medicine, Khon Kaen University, Khon Kaen, Thailand, Tel: +6643348398; Fax: +6643348398; Email: ykasai55@gmail.com

Received: February 16, 2020; Accepted: April 13, 2020; Published: April 20, 2020

Abstract

Background: Although there are many reports related to psychological problems among university students, few are related to chronic pain. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of chronic pain among university students and to clarify some of the factors that affect the occurrence of chronic pain.

Methods: Subjects were 584 university students and they anonymously answered a questionnaire related to pain, lifestyle and stress, and the Japanese version of the Maudsley Personality Inventory (MPI). We divided the subjects into two groups (chronic pain group, no chronic pain group). The results of the questionnaire and the MPI were compared between the two groups.

Results: The number of the subjects with chronic pain was 113 (19.3%). There was significant difference in the frequency of alcohol consumption between the two groups. Regarding the MPI, N score of the chronic pain group was significantly higher than that of the no chronic pain group.

Conclusions: Chronic pain was associated with the frequency of alcohol consumption. University students with chronic pain were more neurotic than those without chronic pain.

Keywords: Chronic pain; University student; Alcohol consumption; Lifestyles; Neuroticism; Extraversion-introversion; Personality characteristics; Maudsley Personality Inventory

Introduction

University students are a special group of the population with respect to health issues. Entering university involves a major change of environment and students are subjected to various stressors such as academic pressure, social issues and financial problems. Furthermore, their lifestyle is likely to become irregular. Although there are many reports related to health issues among university students [1], most focus on psychological problems such as depressive symptoms [2] and few are related to chronic pain. Chronic pain is a common condition that is associated with psychological problems. Zang et al [3] reported that chronic pain was closely related to self-reported academic pressure. Bohman et al [4] suggested that healthy lifestyle behavior (e.g., not smoking, not consuming alcohol, getting the recommended level of physical activity and consuming the recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables) had the potential to decrease the risk of developing chronic low back pain. Therefore, we hypothesized that many university students who have academic pressure and irregular lifestyles have chronic pain.

It is said that personality can influence an individual’s perception of pain and mediate the evolution from acute to chronic pain [5]. We previously administered the Maudsley Personality Inventory (MPI) to outpatients attending all clinical departments of Mie University Hospital to clarify the relationship between pain and personality characteristics, and reported that patients with pain were introverted and neurotic [6]. Therefore, we hypothesized that there is a significant relationship between pain and personality characteristics among university students.

The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of chronic pain among university students and to clarify some of the factors that affect the occurrence of chronic pain.

Materials and Methods

Mie University has faculties of engineering, medicine, bioresources, education, and humanities, law and economics, with a total of 6083 students (3693 men and 2390 women). We asked all students to participate in this study, and a total of 598 students (405 men and 193 women) voluntarily agreed to participate, including 366 engineering students, 156 medical students, 45 bioresources students, 19 education students, 12 humanities, law and economics students. 129 of the subjects were aged 18-19, 391 were aged 20- 22, 70 were aged 23-25 and eight were aged over 26. We explained the aim and the methods of this study to all subjects, and informed consent was obtained from all. According to the ethical guidelines for epidemiologic studies from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, the age at which a person can provide informed consent is over 16 years old, and the study protocol was approved by the Mie University ethics board (No. 1406).

The subjects anonymously answered a questionnaire (Table 1) and the Japanese version of the MPI. The MPI was published by Eysenck [7] and Jensen [8] and was subsequently translated into Japanese [9]. The MPI is a self-rating questionnaire designed to measure the personality factors of extraversion-introversion and neuroticism, and includes a “lie scale” designed to measure lying. The MPI is composed of 80 questions in the three scales of extraversion-introversion (24 questions), neuroticism (24 questions), and lie (20 questions). The remaining 12 questions are not related to the three scales but are used as filler to help conceal the nature of the questionnaire from the subjects. The MPI takes approximately 10 minutes to complete. The maximum score for extraversion-introversion (E score) is 48 points, and those for neuroticism (N score) and lie (L score) are 48 and 40 points, respectively. The higher the E score, the more extraverted the individual, the higher the N score, the more neurotic the individual, and the higher the L score, the higher the tendency to lie. We previously conducted several studies using the MPI, focusing on the personalities of patients with pain [6], the personalities of patients with malignant tumors [10] and the psychological characteristics of mothers of patients with idiopathic scoliosis [11].