Pain in Mental Health Setting and Community: An Exploration

Pain is a commonly experienced complaint in the general population. It aims to determine the occurrence of pain complaints among the general population as well as the clinical group. The sample for the current study was drawn from the ongoing study on development of NIMHANS Screening tool for psychological problems. It includes males and females (119 males and 110 normal and 200 males and 100 clinical subjects) above age 18 years. Subjects were assessed on the question related to frequent experience of body ache and headache in the past one week in an individual setting. Data was analyzed using percentage scores. It indicate that 27% (16% in females and 11% in male) experience pain in the normal group, whereas in clinical categories, 14.5% of anxiety disorder (9.5% in females and 5% in males), 13.9% of depression (8.9% in females and 5% in males), 17.9% of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) (8.5% in females and 9.4% in males) and 13.9% of substance users reported pain in last seven days. It implies the need for sensitization among professionals and general population to identify pain complaints.