ArticleEuropean journal of pain (London, England)2025
Exploring the association between patient-drawn pain diagrams and psychological and physical health variables: A large-scale study of patients with low back pain.
Article in European journal of pain (London, England), 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 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
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- Open-Source Anatomical Illustration for Digital Back Pain Documentation: Development and Feasibility Evaluation.JMIR medical informatics · 2026Article
- A Systematic Review of Pain Drawings for Perioperative Patient Management.Plastic and reconstructive surgery. Global open · 2026Article
- Inefficient default mode network hyperconnectivity characterizes chronic low back-related leg pains: a static and dynamic functional MRI study.Brain imaging and behavior · 2026Article
- Where are the chiropractic clinical outcomes registries? A scoping review.Chiropractic & manual therapies · 2025Article
- Exploring the association between patient-drawn pain diagrams and psychological and physical health variables: A large-scale study of patients with low back pain.European journal of pain (London, England) · 2025Article
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.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundDespite the use of Patient-Drawn Pain Drawings (PDPDs) in clinical settings, their validity as indicators of psychological distress remains debated. We aimed to assess the association between PDPD areas and physical health and psychological variables.
methodsThis study analysed digitally-drawn PDPDs from 15,345 chronic low back pain (LBP) patients at a Danish outpatient hospital unit. We employed a novel quantitative approach to calculate four log-transformed geometric pain areas for each PDPD. We assessed six psychological constructs and seven physical health variables. Associations were modelled using multivariable linear regression.
resultsIncreasing leg pain intensity (estimates from 0.12 to 0.25), disability (estimates from 0.3 to 0.14), and pain duration (estimates from 0.10 to 0.33) had the strongest associations with increasing pain areas. Conversely, increasing fear of movement (estimates from -0.02 to -0.05) and catastrophizing (estimates from -0.02 to -0.03) were associated with slight reductions in pain areas. Anxiety and depression had the weakest and most uncertain relationships to pain area size.
conclusionsIncreasing levels of leg pain intensity, pain duration, and pain-related disability were consistently associated with larger geometric pain areas in PDPDs. Conversely, the associations between the psychological constructs and the geometric pain areas exhibited varying directions and were notably weaker. Clinicians are encouraged to focus on the association of PDPDs with physical symptoms rather than psychological conditions during clinical assessments. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: This large-scale study demonstrates that extensive pain areas in pain drawings drawn by LBP patients do not signify psychological distress. Our findings reveal that these pain representations are more closely linked to increased pain intensity, pain duration, and disability rather than being independently associated with psychological factors. Clinicians are encouraged to focus on the association of extensive pain areas with physical symptoms rather than psychological distress during clinical assessments.
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.