Psychological distress and self-rated health status in reproductive aged women with pain: findings from a national, cross-sectional survey

摘要

Pain impacts upon psychological wellbeing. In pregnant and postpartum women psychological distress may negatively affect the mother-infant relationship and lead to adverse infant development. Yet, co-occurrence of pain with psychological distress in women of reproductive age has not been investigated. Therefore, this study aimed to: 1) assess prevalence of psychological distress in reproductive aged women by pain severity; and 2) examine the self-rated health status of reproductive aged women with and without pain. Data for women aged 18–49?years were obtained from the 2011–12 Australian Bureau of Statistics National Health Survey. Sample data were weighted to give population estimates. Recent pain severity, self-rated health and psychological distress were analysed for pregnant, breastfeeding and non-pregnanton-breastfeeding women. Moderate-to-very severe pain was reported by 17.6% of pregnant (sample n?=?165, weighted N?=?191,856), 25.9% of breastfeeding (sample n?=?210, weighted N?=?234,601) and 23.9% of non-pregnanton-breastfeeding women (sample n?=?4005, weighted N?=?4,607,140). Psychological distress was associated with pain in non-pregnanton-breastfeeding women (p??0.001). High-to-very high distress was seen in 26.4% (95% CI, 23.2–29.6) of NP/NBF, 8.1% (95% CI, 0–17.2) of breastfeeding and 7.3% (95% CI, 0–18.0) of pregnant women with moderate-to-very severe pain. Self-rated health status was associated with pain severity in pregnant (p?=?0.001) and non-pregnanton-breastfeeding (p??0.001) women. Given the strong association between psychological distress and pain in non-pregnanton-breastfeeding women, and the relatively common occurrence of moderate-to-very severe pain in both pregnant and breastfeeding women, assessment of psychological distress levels in all women of reproductive age who report experiencing moderate-to-very severe levels of pain may be of benefit.