Observational studyScandinavian journal of pain2023
Does poor sleep quality lead to increased low back pain the following day?
Observational study in Scandinavian journal of pain, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 5 citations in OpenAlex.
- Association of nighttime sleep duration and quality with low back pain in middle-aged and elderly Chinese: a nationwide longitudinal cohort study.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Prevalence of lower back pain and its associations with lifestyle behaviors among university students in the West Bank, Palestine: a cross-sectional study.Annals of medicine · 2025Article
- The association between sleep disorder, sleep duration and chronic back pain: results from National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys, 2009-2010.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Chronic Low Back Pain Causal Risk Factors Identified by Mendelian Randomization: a Cross-Sectional Cohort Analysis.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesThis study explored the relationship between sleep quality and next-day pain intensity for people with low back pain and investigated whether there was any evidence that this relationship was causal.
methodsWe conducted a secondary analysis of an observational study that investigated sleep quality in people with low back pain. People with low back pain were recruited from primary care and the community. Sleep quality was measured with subjective (self-report) and objective (polysomnography (PSG)) measures. PSG analysis classifies sleep into stages, of which slow-wave sleep (SWS) is thought to have a key role in maintaining or increasing pain intensity. We drew directed acyclic graphs to identify possible confounders of the relationship between both measures of sleep quality, and pain intensity. We constructed two linear regression models to explore the effect of subjective and objective sleep quality on next-day pain intensity before and after confounder adjustment.
resultsThirty-nine participants were included in the study. For participants with low back pain, self-reported better quality sleep β=-0.38 (95% CI -0.63 to -0.13), or spending a greater proportion of time in SWS β=-0.12 (95% CI -0.22 to -0.02) was associated with lower next day pain intensity. After confounder adjustment, the effect reduced and was no longer significant for either self-reported β=-0.18 (95% CI -0.46 to 0.10), or SWS β=-0.08 (95% CI -0.18 to 0.03).
conclusionsSleep quality, whether measured by self-report or proportion of time in SWS, was associated with next day pain intensity for people with low back pain. However, this relationship is likely to be confounded and therefore not likely to be causal.
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Registered trials
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