Positive smoking status has been associated with greater pain intensity and interference in chronic pain conditions. This study was conducted to determine if gender influenced this association.

Methods

500 consecutive adult patients with non-malignant pain evaluated at the Mayo Clinic outpatient Pain Clinic from October 2005 to March 2006 were analyzed for this study. Baseline demographic variables, current smoking status and pain score where collected on initial evaluation. Patients were mailed the Brief Pain Inventory in September 2006. Statistical analysis included the use of the two-tailed t-test and Pearson correlation analysis, with p-values < 0.05 considered statistically significant.

Results

The 230 subjects that returned the survey consisted of 145 females (14 smokers) and 85 males (22 smokers). Gender was not associated with demographic, pain intensity or interference differences. Smokers were more likely to be non-married (p=0.04) and unemployed (p=0.01), report greater pain intensity (p=0.01), interference on mood (p=0.001) and sleep (p=0.002) BPI sub-scales. Compared to female non-smokers, female smokers were more likely to be unemployed (p=0.001) less likely to complete high school (p0.04), and reported greater pain intensity (p=0.007) and interference on mood (p<0.001), personal relationships (p=0.03), sleep (p=0.001), and enjoyment of life (p=0.03) BPI sub-scales. Among males, smoking status was not related to demographic, pain intensity or interference differences.

Discussion

In this cohort smoking status was associated with greater pain intensity and interference and less favorable demographic variables. Disparity was noted between female smokers and non-smokers, but not among male subjects. These findings suggest that female smokers with painful conditions have greater affective distress than other subsets of patients.