ArticleArthritis research & therapy2021
Pain chronification and the important role of non-disease-specific symptoms in patients with systemic sclerosis.
Article in Arthritis research & therapy, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 12 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Effect of Adding Paraffin Bath to the Therapeutic Hand Exercise Programme on Hand Functions in Patients with Systemic Sclerosis: A Randomized, Controlled, Single-Blind Study.Archives of rheumatology · 2026Article
- Development of a tool to map SSc pain sources, characteristics and management experiences: the SPIN Pain Assessment Tool.Rheumatology (Oxford, England) · 2026Article
- Pain and fatigue in systemic sclerosis: Practical strategies for non-pharmacological management.Journal of scleroderma and related disorders · 2025Review
- The Prevalence and Severity of Pain in Patients With Systemic Sclerosis.The Journal of dermatology · 2025Article
- Annual trends in pain management modalities in patients with newly diagnosed autoimmune rheumatic diseases in the USA from 2007 to 2021: an administrative claims-based study.The Lancet. Rheumatology · 2024Article
- Protocol for the development of a tool to map systemic sclerosis pain sources, patterns, and management experiences: a Scleroderma Patient-centered Intervention Network patient-researcher partnership.BMC rheumatology · 2024Article
- The frequency and clinical associations of opioid use in systemic sclerosis.Rheumatology advances in practice · 2024Article
- Determinants of Depressive Symptoms, Quality of Life, Subjective Health Status and Physical Limitation in Patients with Systemic Sclerosis.Acta dermato-venereologica · 2023Article
- Differences in symptom experience among patients with systemic sclerosis: a cluster analytic approach to identifying subgroups.Rheumatology (Oxford, England) · 2023Article
- Systemic sclerosis. Part I: epidemiology, diagnosis and therapy.BJA education · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundPain is a frequent, yet inadequately explored challenge in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc). This study aimed to conduct an extensive pain assessment, examining pain chronification and its association with disease manifestations.
methodsConsecutive SSc patients attending their annual assessment were included. SSc-specific features were addressed as defined by the European Scleroderma Trials and Research (EUSTAR) guidelines. Pain analysis included intensity, localization, treatment, chronification grade according to the Mainz Pain Staging System (MPSS), general well-being using the Marburg questionnaire on habitual health findings (MFHW) and symptoms of anxiety and depression using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS).
resultsOne hundred forty-seven SSc patients completed a pain questionnaire, and 118/147 patients reporting pain were included in the analysis. Median pain intensity was 4/10 on a numeric rating scale (NRS). The most frequent major pain localizations were hand and lower back. Low back pain as the main pain manifestation was significantly more frequent in patients with very early SSc (p = 0.01); those patients also showed worse HADS and MFHW scores. Regarding pain chronification, 34.8% were in stage I according to the MPSS, 45.2% in stage II and 20.0% in stage III. There was no significant correlation between chronification grade and disease severity, but advanced chronification was significantly more frequent in patients with low back pain (p = 0.024). It was also significantly associated with pathological HADS scores (p < 0.0001) and linked with decreased well-being and higher use of analgesics.
conclusionsOur study implies that also non-disease-specific symptoms such as low back pain need to be considered in SSc patients, especially in early disease. Since low back pain seems to be associated with higher grades of pain chronification and psychological problems, our study underlines the importance of preventing pain chronification in order to enhance the quality of life.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.