Journal article
Progression of chronic pain and associated health-related quality of life and healthcare resource use over 5 years after total knee replacement: evidence from a cohort study
- Abstract:
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Objective
As part of the STAR Programme, a comprehensive study exploring long-term pain after surgery, we investigated how pain and function, health-related quality of life (HRQL), and healthcare resource use evolved over 5 years after total knee replacement (TKR) for those with and without chronic pain 1 year after their primary surgery.
Methods
We used data from the Clinical Outcomes in Arthroplasty Study prospective cohort study, which followed patients undergoing TKR from two English hospitals for 5 years. Chronic pain was defined using the Oxford Knee Score Pain Subscale (OKS-PS) where participants reporting a score of 14 or lower were classified as having chronic pain 1-year postsurgery. Pain and function were measured with the OKS, HRQL using the EuroQoL-5 Dimension, resource use from yearly questionnaires, and costs estimated from a healthcare system perspective. We analysed the changes in OKS-PS, HRQL and resource use over a 5-year follow-up period. Multiple imputation accounted for missing data.
Results
Chronic pain was reported in 70/552 operated knees (12.7%) 1 year after surgery. The chronic pain group had worse pain, function and HRQL presurgery and postsurgery than the non-chronic pain group. Those without chronic pain markedly improved right after surgery, then plateaued. Those with chronic pain improved slowly but steadily. Participants with chronic pain reported greater healthcare resource use and costs than those without, especially 1 year after surgery, and mostly from hospital readmissions. 64.7% of those in chronic pain recovered during the following 4 years, while 30.9% fluctuated in and out of chronic pain.
Conclusion
Although TKR is often highly beneficial, some patients experienced chronic pain postsurgery. Although many fluctuated in their pain levels and most recovered over time, identifying people most likely to have chronic pain and supporting their recovery would benefit patients and healthcare systems.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, 1000.1KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1136/bmjopen-2021-058044
Authors
- Publisher:
- BMJ Publishing Group
- Journal:
- BMJ Open More from this journal
- Volume:
- 12
- Issue:
- 4
- Article number:
- e058044
- Publication date:
- 2022-04-25
- Acceptance date:
- 2022-03-22
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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2044-6055
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1246967
- Local pid:
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pubs:1246967
- Deposit date:
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2022-03-23
Terms of use
- Copyright date:
- 2022
- Rights statement:
- ©2022 Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon this work for any purpose, provided the original work is properly cited, a link to the licence is given, and indication of whether changes were made.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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