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Chronic pain among older women living alone. A study focusing on disability and morale

Abstract Purpose: To investigate (i) how older women who are living alone perceive chronic musculoskeletal pain, activities of daily living (ADL), physical activity, affective distress, pain-related beliefs, pain management, and rate pain-related disability and morale, and (ii) the relationships between demographic variables, ADL, physical activity, affective distress, pain-related beliefs, and pain management with pain-related disability and morale. Method: The study had a cross-sectional and correlational design. Sixty women, living alone with chronic pain and community support aged ≥ 65 years were included. Results: The women were on average 81 years old and had lived with pain for about 21.5 years. They reported low scores of affective distress, catastrophizing thoughts and self-efficacy, high scores of fear of movement, low degrees of pain-related disability and low levels of morale. The multiple regression analysis showed that only catastrophizing thoughts significantly explained the variation in pain-related disability, and both affective distress and catastrophizing thoughts significantly explained the variation in morale. Conclusion: These older women living alone with chronic pain reported similar prevalence of chronic pain and pain-related disability but lower morale when comparing the results with similar studies about older people in the same age group or older people who are in need of help to manage their daily life. The only variable that was independently associated with both pain-related disability and morale was catastrophizing. Further research should focus on identifying catastrophizing thoughts, on developing a rehabilitation programme based on a biopsychosocial perspective with the goal to decrease catastrophizing, pain-related disability and increase morale for this target group.