Lack of disability in patients with chronic orofacial pain A retrospective study

Abstract

Although patients with chronic orofacial pain are frequently disabled, the disability is not necessarily due to the orofacial pain: various other factors may contribute. This retrospective study investigated the possible relationship between reports of pain, fatigue, disease conviction (DC), and denial of psychologic factors as explanation of the suffering (P-S) and limitations in occupational, domestic, physical, social, and sexual activities. The subjects comprised 30 patients referred to the Facial Pain Diagnostic Group at the Karolinska Institute, School of Dentistry, Huddinge, Sweden. None of the disability measures were significantly (p ≤ 0.01) correlated with the facial pain reports. Fatigue was not correlated with degree of reported pain. DC was significantly (p ≤ 0.01) correlated only with the minimum pain intensity. P-S was negatively correlated (p ≤ 0.01) with maximum pain intensity and pain distribution (number of zones) outside the face. In 50% of the patients chronic orofacial pain was the formal reason for their occupational disability. However, such disability was related only to pain distribution (number of zones) outside the face. Social activity was negatively correlated (p ≤ 0.01) with fatigue and positively correlated (p ≤ 0.01) with P-S. It is suggested that the findings could be satisfactorily explained by a symptom perception hypothesis.

Key Words:

• Facial pain
• fatigue
• intractable pain
• occupational disability