Higher Pain Intensity, Depression, and Being 75 Years or Older are Associated with Lower Levels of Self-Reported Physical Activity in Older Adults with Pain Attending Primary Care

ABSTRACT

Objective: This study investigated whether pain characteristics (intensity, frequency, duration and number of pain sites), depression, age, sex and comorbidities are associated with lower levels of selfreported physical activity in older adults with pain at the primary healthcare setting.Methods: A total of 504 participants aged 60 years of age and over were assessed for: socio-demographics, comorbidities, pain, depression, and physical activity. Associations between these variables were investigated using ordinal logistic regression.Results: Reporting severe pain or worst imaginable pain, being older (≥ 75 years), and feeling depressed were significantly associated with lower physical activity in the univariate (OR = 2.33, 2.93, 2.31, and 2.23, respectively) and multivariate models (Adj OR = 2.21, 2.47, 2.49, and 1.97, respectively).Conclusions: Interventions aiming to increase physical activity for older adults in primary care should consider the needs of those reporting higher pain intensity, feeling depressed and who are 75 years or older.

KEYWORDS:

• Older adults
• pain
• physical activity
• primary care

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all people from the Agrupamento de Centros de Saúde Baixo Vouga that directly or indirectly contributed to this work and to the students that contributed to data collection.