Update Prevalence of Chronic Pain Among Hong Kong Adult Population: Change Over the Last Decade

Background Chronic pain is one of the major health problems among Western countries. It is also one of the most frequent reasons for seeking medical care. Chronic pain is also an important problem in Hong Kong. A study conducted in our institution in 2002 discovered that the prevalence of chronic pain among Hong Kong adult population was 10.8%. This is expected to be higher after a decade as the population is aging because old age is one of the risk factors of chronic pain.

The changes in prevalence, pattern, severity and help seeking behavior should be explored in order to evaluate the attitude toward chronic pain and the efficacy of chronic pain treatment. A local study reported the prevalence of chronic pain in 2007 in Hong Kong was as high as 34.9%. The reported rate was much higher than that of Ng et al. However, the difference in methodology produced different results even though they were done in the same population, which make the comparison difficult. Besides, the treatment efficacy and help seeking behavior were not studied in this study. The differences in mode of data collection, the wording of the questionnaire and the grouping of categories also influence the results of the study. It is also desirable to have the update information of chronic pain in Hong Kong regularly (i.e. every 5 years) in view of the rapid increase in prevalence of chronic pain in Hong Kong.

To compare the changes in chronic pain prevalence and related outcomes, this study design is similar to the previous study done in our institution in 2002. The definition of chronic pain is the same as the previous study, which is pain persistence for 3 months or more. The mode of conducting the interview and the questionnaire used will be grossly similar to the previous study. Because chronic neuropathic pain is common and sometimes difficult to be managed, questions about the incidence of chronic neuropathic pain will also be sought. This important information has not been reported in Hong Kong before. The purpose of this study is to obtain the update cross-sectional prevalence and demographic information of chronic pain among Hong Kong adult population. The data will be compared with a similar study 4 done 10 years ago at our center in order to assess the change of chronic pain over the past decade. Treatment seeking preference will also be assessed. We hypothesize that the prevalence of chronic pain is increased when compare that of a decade ago.