Prevalence and characteristics of neuropathic pain in leprosy patients treated years ago

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of neuropathic pain, now recognized as another late complication of leprosy, and its characteristics among leprosy patients. A cross-sectional study was carried out of people treated for leprosy up to at least 5 years ago in a rural area of Ethiopia. Seventy-four patients were interviewed using the Neuropathic Pain Symptom Inventory (NPSI) questionnaire. In total, 78·9% of the patients were female with a mean age of 42·9. The mean time from initial diagnosis to the time of the study was 28·0 years, and 73·0% of patients were diagnosed over 20 years ago. Fifty-two (70·3%) reported having symptoms suggestive of neuropathic pain and the majority described the pain as burning (88·5%), electric (80·8%), stabbing (76·9%), cutting (76·9%), tingling (65·4%), squeezing (57·7%), and/or pressure (53·8%). The pain caused a severe or moderate impact on daily life in 75% and 57·7% of cases, respectively, and 92·3% suffered from disrupted sleep. Eighty percent of patients with pain (42/52) took some medication for pain relief. Neuropathic pain is common in patients treated for leprosy and in more than half of them, it causes disruption in their daily life and sleep, limiting their quality of life even more.

Keywords:

• Neuropathic pain
• Leprosy
• Quality of life
• Ethiopia

Acknowledgements

We express our sincere thanks to the local staff for their cooperation and many thanks will go to the people affected by leprosy who participated in the study. We express our gratitude to Dr Didier Bouhassira for allow to use the Neuropathic Pain Symptom Inventory questionnaire in our non-funded study. We express our gratitude to Lorraine Mealing for her assistance in editing.