Abstract
Studies about clinical pain in schizophrenia are rare. Conclusions on pain sensitivity
in people with schizophrenia are primarily based on experimental pain studies. This
review attempts to assess clinical pain, that is, everyday pain without experimental manipulation, in people with schizophrenia.
PubMed, PsycINFO, Embase.com, and Cochrane were searched with terms related to schizophrenia and pain. Methodological quality was assessed with the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool. Fourteen
studies were included. Persons with schizophrenia appear to have a diminished prevalence
of pain, as well as a lower intensity of pain when compared to persons with other
psychiatric diseases. When compared to healthy controls, both prevalence and intensity
of pain appear to be diminished for persons with schizophrenia. However, it was found
that this effect only applies to pain with an apparent medical cause, such as headache
after lumbar puncture. For less severe situations, prevalence and intensity of pain
appears to be comparable between people with schizophrenia and controls. Possible
underlying mechanisms are discussed. Knowledge about pain in schizophrenia is important
for adequate pain treatment in clinical practice.
Perspective
This review presents a valuable insight into clinical pain in people with schizophrenia.
Key words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: December 23, 2013
Footnotes
We are grateful for the financial support through departmental funds of GGz Centraal INNOVA, GGz-VS and Inholland University of Applied Sciences.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Supplementary data accompanying this article are available online at www.jpain.org and www.sciencedirect.com.
Identification
Copyright
© 2014 American Pain Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
