ArticlePain medicine (Malden, Mass.)2019
Cumulative Childhood Adversity as a Risk Factor for Common Chronic Pain Conditions in Young Adults.
Article in Pain medicine (Malden, Mass.), 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 49 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
49 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 120 citations in OpenAlex.
- Impact of adverse childhood experiences on analgesia-related outcomes: a systematic review.British journal of anaesthesia · 2025Pooled it
- Social Determinants of Health and Dysmenorrhea: A Systematic Review.The journal of pain · 2024Pooled it
- A systematic review of personality and musculoskeletal disorders: evidence from general population studies.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Adverse childhood experience is associated with an increased risk of reporting chronic pain in adulthood: a stystematic review and meta-analysis.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2023Pooled it
- Cumulative adulthood trauma exposures and pain outcomes among older adults.British journal of pain · 2026Article
- Impact of adverse life experiences on pain, depression, anxiety, and comorbidities: a youth longitudinal sample.Pain reports · 2026Article
- Article
- Early-life adversities are associated with anxiety and somatic symptoms among university students: moderation by family support.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- Association of Pain Intensity and Sensitivity with Childhood Trauma in Adolescents with Depressive Disorder: A Multicenter Study.Psychology research and behavior management · 2026Article
- Parental upheaval experienced in childhood and its effect on pain-related cognitions across the lifespan: an exploratory investigation.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Sex Differences in the Effects of Early Life Stressors in a Rat Model of Myofascial Low Back Pain.European journal of pain (London, England) · 2025Article
- More severe history of childhood adversity is linked to greater surface area of induced secondary hyperalgesia.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- A cross-national analysis of childhood predictors of physical pain.Communications medicine · 2025Article
- Maternal oxytocin administration mitigates nociceptive, social, and epigenetic impairments in adolescent offspring exposed to perinatal trauma.Neurotherapeutics : the journal of the American Society for Experimental NeuroTherapeutics · 2025Article
- Early life adversity increases risk for chronic post-traumatic pain, data from humans and rodents.Pain · 2025Article
- Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) in Specific Vulnerable Developmental Periods Can Increase the Likelihood of Chronic Pain in Adulthood-Results from a Cross-Sectional Study.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- The effects of neighborhood disadvantage and adverse childhood experiences on conditioned pain modulation in adults with chronic low back pain.The journal of pain · 2025Article
- The associations between adverse childhood experiences and body pain among middle-aged and older adults: findings from China.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Adverse Childhood Experiences and Chronic Low Back Pain in Adulthood: The Role of Emotion Regulation.The journal of pain · 2024Observational
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveMultiple and specific types of childhood adverse events are risk factors for chronic pain conditions. Although both can covary, no study has evaluated one aspect while controlling for the other. Therefore, the current study examined whether more adverse events would be a risk factor for common chronic pain conditions and pain medication use in young adults after controlling for different adversity types such as physical, emotional, and sexual traumatic events or vice versa.
methodsThis cross-sectional study recruited 3,073 undergraduates (72% female, mean age = 18.8 years, SD = 1.4 years) who completed the survey for current health status and early life traumatic events.
resultsMore adverse events were associated with a 1.2-1.3-fold increase in the odds of any chronic pain, chronic back pain, headache, and dysmenorrhea with adjusting for adversity types, but they were not associated with the risk of comorbid pain conditions and use of pain medications. In contrast, specific adversity types were unrelated to chronic pain conditions when controlling for the number of adverse events.
conclusionsCumulative childhood adverse events may be a more relevant risk factor for chronic pain conditions than the experience of a specific type of adverse event. Clinicians and researchers need to evaluate cumulative childhood adversity when assessing its link to chronic pain.
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