The prevalence, correlates and treatment of pain in Spain

Figures & data

Table 1.  Population prevalence of pain by severity and frequency, NHWS 2010, Spain.

Frequency of pain reported	Severe pain (%)	Moderate pain (%)	Mild pain (%)	Total pain population (%)
Daily	1.63	4.90	—	6.95
4–6 times a week	—	1.57	—	2.20
2–3 times a week	—	2.21	—	3.06
Weekly or less	—	2.39	2.49	5.04
Total pain population (million)	2.02 (0.71)	11.07 (3.92)	4.16 (1.47)	17.25 (6.10)
Distribution within the pain population	11.69	64.17	24.14	100.00

—, Sample size too small to project to total population (n < 30).

Source: NHWS 2010.

Table 2.  Population prevalence of pain by severity, age, gender, education and income, NHWS 2010, Spain.

Socio-economic characteristic	Severe pain (%)	Moderate pain (%)	Mild pain (%)	Total pain population (%)
Age
18–39 years of age	—	2.36	1.51	4.18
40–59 years of age	1.07	5.50	1.60	8.18
60 years of age and over	—	3.20	—	4.89
Gender
Males	0.56	4.10	2.12	6.78
Females	1.46	6.97	2.04	10.47
Education
High School	0.82	4.63	1.54	6.98
University and above	0.88	4.97	2.34	8.19
Other	—	1.47	—	2.07
Household income
Under €20,000	0.75	3.21	0.98	4.95
€20,000–39,999	0.65	4.34	1.67	6.66
€40,000 and above	—	2.03	1.07	3.40
Declined to answer	—	1.49	—	2.24

—, Sample size too small to project to total population (n < 30).

Source: NHWS 2010.

Table 3.  Distribution of pain by severity, age, gender, education and household income, NHWS 2010, Spain.

Socio-economic characteristic	Severe pain (%)	Moderate pain (%)	Mild pain (%)	Total pain population (%)
Age
18–39 years of age	—	56.48	36.04	31.10
40–59 years of age	13.09	67.29	19.61	36.64
60 years of age and over	—	65.52	21.54	32.26
Gender
Males	8.20	60.45	31.35	48.47
Females	13.95	66.58	19.48	51.53
Education
High School	11.76	66.23	22.01	37.48
University and above	10.72	60.72	28.54	51.37
Other	—	70.85	—	11.15
Household income
Under €20,000	15.21	64.99	19.81	28.96
€20,000 to €39,999	9.78	65.16	25.07	36.17
€40,000 and above	—	59.68	31.56	19.44
Declined to answer	—	66.23	19.70	15.43

—, Sample size too small to project to total population (n < 30).

Source: NHWS 2010.

Table 4.  Pain population, prevalence of conditions causing pain by pain severity, NHWS 2010, Spain.

Pain condition experienced	Persons experiencing severe pain (%)	Persons experiencing moderate pain (%)	Persons experiencing mild pain (%)	Prevalence of pain experienced in pain population (%)
Back pain	13.25	67.40	19.36	60.53
Joint pain	14.64	66.20	19.16	40.21
Neck pain	14.90	65.95	19.15	28.62
Headache	12.48	63.86	23.66	34.72
Arthritis pain	17.28	66.32	16.41	16.61
Migraine	27.95	56.88	15.17	11.67
Dental pain	14.58	71.23	14.18	10.01
Sprains or strains	12.70	56.72	30.58	10.01
Shoulder pain/stiffness	15.53	67.33	17.14	23.27
Surgery or medical procedure pain	28.80	62.79	8.23	6.62

Source: NHWS, 2010.

Table 5.  Pain population, pain severity distribution by major health conditions experienced and population health condition prevalence in past 12 months, NHWS 2010, Spain.

Health condition experienced in past 12 months	Persons experiencing severe pain (%)	Persons experiencing moderate pain (%)	Persons experiencing mild pain (%)	Health condition prevalence in pain population (%)
Sleep difficulties	16.47	65.40	18.41	42.24
Headache	13.41	64.31	22.27	40.62
Anxiety	18.31	62.36	19.33	40.62
Insomnia	19.88	62.70	17.41	29.87
Migraine	17.33	61.21	21.46	24.28
Depression	23.65	63.01	13.34	24.43
Abdominal pain	—	64.91	—	16.24

Major is defined as where 100 or more respondents indicated the health condition.

—, Sample size too small to project to total population (n < 30).

Source: NHWS 2010.

Table 6.  Pain population, distribution of pain severity by medication utilization, NHWS 2010, Spain.

Medication status	Persons experiencing severe pain (%)	Persons experiencing moderate pain (%)	Persons experiencing mild pain (%)
Only prescription pain medications	15.26	68.62	16.11
Only OTC pain medications	—	52.97	40.99
Prescription and OTC pain medications	—	74.94	—
No pain medications/no response	—	58.47	35.15

—, Sample size too small to project to total population (n < 30).

Source: NHWS 2010.

Table 7.  Pain population, distribution of medication utilization by pain severity, NHWS 2010, Spain.

Medication status	Persons experiencing severe pain (%)	Persons experiencing moderate pain (%)	Persons experiencing mild pain (%)	Total pain population (%)
Only prescription pain medications	63.67	52.17	32.55	48.78
Persons reporting prescription  medications only with opioid use	48.60	34.15	21.67	34.38
Only OTC pain medications	—	18.12	37.28	21.95
Prescription and OTC pain medications	—	13.83	—	11.85
No pain medications/no response	—	15.87	25.36	17.42

—, Sample size too small to project to total population (n < 30).

Source: NHWS 2010.

Table 8.  Pain population, duration of pain medication utilization by pain severity, NHWS 2010, Spain.

Pain severity experienced	Les than 3 months (%)	3 months or more (%)
Severe pain with Rx medication only	—	88.06
Severe pain with Rx and OTC medication	—	78.74
Severe pain total	—	82.95
Moderate pain with Rx medication only	13.74	86.26
Moderate pain with Rx and OTC medication	—	85.42
Moderate pain total	15.54	84.46
Mild pain with Rx medication only	21.39	78.61
Mild pain with Rx and OTC medication	—	—
Mild pain total	23.88	76.12

—, Sample size too small to project to total population (n < 30).

Source: NHWS 2010.

Table 9.  Adherence to prescription pain medications by pain severity, NHWS 2010, Spain.

Morisky score	Persons experiencing severe pain (%)	Persons experiencing moderate pain (%)	Persons experiencing mild pain (%)	Total pain population (%)
0	60.19	43.61	—	45.34
1	—	28.58	—	27.54
2	—	15.42	—	14.97
3	—	—	—	7.09
4	—	—	—	—
Average Morisky score (SD)	0.58 (0.93)	1.02 (1.17)	1.25 (1.19)	0.99 (1.16)

SD = standard deviation. Morisky adherence score is zero for fully adherent; the range is 0–4.

—, Sample size too small to project to total population (n < 30).

Source: NHWS 2010.

Table 10.  Health-related quality of life by pain severity, NHWS 2010, Spain.

Health-related quality of life measure	Persons experiencing severe pain (SD)	Persons experiencing moderate pain (SD)	Persons experiencing mild pain (SD)	Pain population (SD)	No pain population (SD)
SF-12 Physical Component score	28.93 (9.93)	41.23 (10.02)	48.28 (6.78)	41.49 (10.80)	49.83 (8.35)
SF-12 Mental Component score	37.72 (12.41)	43.97 (10.70)	45.80 (10.21)	43.68 (11.04)	48.14 (10.17)
SF-6D Utility score	0.52 (0.10)	0.65 (0.11)	0.72 (0.12)	0.65 (0.13)	0.75 (0.13)

SD = standard deviation. Source: NHWS 2010.

Table 11.  Labor force participation by pain severity, NHWS 2010, Spain.

Labor force status	Persons experiencing severe pain (%)	Persons experiencing moderate pain (%)	Persons experiencing mild pain (%)	Pain population (%)	No pain population (%)
Employed full-time	—	32.96	44.99	34.35	37.48
Employed part-time	—	7.45	—	7.87	6.25
Self-employed	—	8.22	—	6.95	6.11
Unemployed	—	11.33	—	11.62	10.67
In the labor force	42.62	59.96	71.80	60.79	60.51
Not in the labor force	57.38	40.04	28.20	39.21	39.49

—, Sample size too small to project to total population (n < 30).

Source: NHWS 2010.

Table 12.  Employed population, percentage of work hours lost due to absenteeism and presenteeism by pain severity, NHWS 2010, Spain.

Percent of work hours lost or with reduced productivity in last 7 days	Persons experiencing severe pain (%) (SD)	Persons experiencing moderate pain (%) (SD)	Persons experiencing mild pain (%) (SD)	Pain population (%) (SD)	No pain population (%) (SD)
Absenteeism	39.39 (46.51)	12.23 (28.80)	5.56 (16.14)	12.13 (28.57)	3.35 (13.49)
Presenteeism	42.92 (32.45)	26.01 (26.58)	21.53 (25.91)	25.39 (26.75)	15.55 (23.38)

SD = standard deviation. Source: NHWS 2010.

Table 13.  Healthcare resource utilization by pain severity, NHWS 2010, Spain.

Healthcare resource utilization	Persons experiencing severe pain (SD)	Persons experiencing moderate pain (SD)	Persons experiencing mild pain (SD)	Total pain population (SD)	No pain population (SD)
Average number of traditional provider visits	16.07 (13.53)	8.83 (9.44)	5.33 (5.35)	8.82 (9.74)	4.58 (6.28)
Average number of emergency room visits	1.90 (2.49)	0.57 (1.16)	0.64 (1.97)	0.73 (1.65)	0.40 (1.32)
Average number of hospitalizations	0.58 (1.42)	0.17 (0.68)	0.15 (0.60)	0.21 (0.80)	0.13 (0.72)

SD = standard deviation.

Source: NHWS 2010.

Table 14.  Population prevalence of persons experiencing pain by selected region, NHWS 2010, Spain.

Province	Population experiencing pain (18 years of age and over)	Total population (18 years of age and over)	Population prevalence of pain experienced in the last month (%)
Andalusia	1,209,965	6,596,052	18.34
Cataluna	1,050,654	5,965,129	17.61
Comunidad Valenciana	769,105	4,093,600	18.79
Galicia	432,514	2,353,174	18.38
Madrid	765,791	5,173,485	14.80

Source: NHWS 2010.