Observational studyPain medicine (Malden, Mass.)2022
Reciprocal Effects Between Depressive Symptoms and Pain in Veterans over 50 Years of Age or Older.
Observational study in Pain medicine (Malden, Mass.), 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 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
7 citing papers in PubMed, 9 citations in OpenAlex.
- Re-examining the pain-depression vicious cycle in knee osteoarthritis: a random-intercept cross-lagged panel analysis.BMC musculoskeletal disorders · 2026Article
- Association Between Depressive Symptoms and Pain Intensity in Patients With Arthritis.Brain and behavior · 2026Article
- Combining Noninvasive Brain Stimulation and Physiotherapy to Improve the Management of Chronic Low Back Pain in Veterans: Protocol for a Multi-Arm Randomized Controlled Trial.JMIR research protocols · 2026Article
- The lived and living experiences of having chronic pain and mental illness among Canadian veterans: A qualitative descriptive study.PLOS mental health · 2026Article
- Rural Missourians' perspectives on pain: "I like to be in control of my life".Health & place · 2025Article
- Relationship Between Chronic Body Pain and Depression Among Middle-Aged and Elderly People in China: A Longitudinal Population-Based Study From CHARLS.Chronic diseases and translational medicine · 2025Article
- Biological factors influencing depression in later life: role of aging processes and treatment implications.Translational psychiatry · 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
6 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveDepression and chronic pain are major problems in American veterans, yet there is limited long-term research examining how they relate to one another in this population. This study examined the relationship between depressive symptoms and pain in U.S. veterans 50 years of age or older.
methodsThis study used data on veterans from the 2002-2016 waves of the Health and Retirement Study (n = 4,302), a large-scale observational study of Americans 50 years of age or older. Measures included a short form of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale and two items assessing the presence and degree of pain. Analyses included random-intercept cross-lagged panel models (RI-CLPM).
resultsIn the RI-CLPM, there were roughly equivalent cross-lagged effects between depressive symptoms and pain. There was also evidence that depressive symptoms and pain have a trait-like component and that these trait-like characteristics are associated.
conclusionsThese findings indicate that depressive symptoms and pain in veterans are stable characteristics in American veterans 50 years of age or older. There appear to be reciprocal effects between the two, whereby deviations in one's typical depressive symptoms predict subsequent deviations in one's pain level and vice versa; however, the size of these effects is very small. These findings suggest that clinicians should treat both depressive symptoms and pain, rather than assume that treatment benefits in one domain will lead to major benefits in another.
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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.