Self-Reported Facial Pain in UK Biobank Study : Prevalence and Associated Factors

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Alcohol Consumption in Relation to Risk and Severity of Chronic Widespread Pain : Results from a UK population-based study

Acknowledgements The study was funded by Arthritis Research UK, Chesterfield, UK (Grant award number 17292). The funder did not have any role in the design, conduct of the study, in the collection, analysis or interpretation of the data, nor in the preparation, review or approval of the manuscript. We are grateful to the following practices and their patients for participating in the study: in Aberdeen: Carden Medical Centre, Elmbank Medical Practice, Great Western Medical Practice, Garthdee Medical Group, and in East Cheshire: Readesmoor Medical Group Practice, Lawton House Surgery, Bollington Medical Centre, Park Lane Surgery. The Scottish Primary Care Research Network facilitated access to patient information at the practices in Aberdeen city. Investigators on the MUSICIAN study were: Gordon J Prescott, Paul McNamee, Philip C Hannaford (all University of Aberdeen), John McBeth, Karina Lovell, Phil Keeley, Deborah PM Symmons (all University of Manchester) and Steve Woby (Penine Acute NHS Trust). Charlie Stockton was the study manager during the setting up and for part of the conduct of the study and Chrysa Gkazinou for the remainder of the study. Elizabeth Jones was part of the study team and undertook her PhD using data from the study (unrelated to the current analysis). John Norrie was originally an investigator of the MUSICIAN study while Director of the Centre for Health Care Randomised Trials (CHART) at the University of Aberdeen. We are grateful for the input of members of the Health Services Research Unit (HSRU) at The University of Aberdeen in the conduct of the study: Alison MacDonald and Gladys McPherson. The study was conceived by GJM who also drafted the manuscript. MB undertook the data analysis and critically reviewed the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Managing chronic widespread pain in primary care : a qualitative study of patient perspectives and implications for treatment delivery

Funding The MUSICIAN trial was supported by an award from Arthritis Research UK, Chesterfield, UK. Grant number: 17292. The funding body approved the design of the study. They played no role in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data or the writing of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Maternal and perinatal risk factors for childhood cancer : record linkage study

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The effect of an internet option and single-sided printing format to increase the response rate to a population-based study : a randomized controlled trial

Acknowledgements We would like to thank the Institute of Applied Health Sciences (IAHS) at the University of Aberdeen for funding the PhD studentship of EF. Furthermore, we would like to thank everyone who was involved in the study, including Professor Sir Lewis Ritchie (Director of Public Health, NHS Grampian), John Lemon (University of Aberdeen), Dr. Fiona Garton (University of Aberdeen) and the Aberdeen Service User Group. Lastly, we would like to acknowledge all data entry clerks (Maxx Livingstone, Rory Macfarlane, Georgia Mannion-Krase and Hazel Reilly) and participants of the study.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The epidemiology of regional and widespread pain syndromes

Background: Pain is common in the general population. Approximately 50% of adults will report pain during the past month which has lasted at least 1 day. The most common sites for pain to occur are the lower back and upper limbs (particularly the shoulder), but chronic widespread body pain is also reported by around 10% of the general population. The majority of pain reported in a population would be considered to be of musculoskeletal origin. Even if one restricts attention to pain which results in some limitation of activities - the prevalence is still high. What is the aetiology of these common conditions. Aims: This thesis, using published work explores the aetiology of regional and widespread body pain syndromes. They consider both the outcome and onset of symptoms in addition to some methodological issues arising from the work. Methods: All the studies included are population-based. There were four studies conducted: The Stockport Shoulder Study, The North Cheshire Pain Study, The South Manchester Low Back Pain Study and The Altrincham Pain study. All were conducted on random samples of the adult population aged 18-65 years who were followed prospectively either to determine the onset or outcome of pain symptoms. These were then related to risk factor information, collected around the time of recruitment. The risk factor information included: a) individual (constitutional) factors such as age, gender, anthropometry, b) work-related mechanical (injury) factors c) psychological distress and d) psychosocial factors usually measured in the workplace and including measurements of demands, support available and autonomy. In addition, participants in two of the surveys were flagged at the Office for National Statistics and information on their vital status collected for up to ten years after participating in the original pain study. Their pain status on survey was then related to long-term mortality experience. Results: The studies find that adverse psychological and psychosocial factors are strong predictors of onset and outcome of both regional and widespread pain syndromes. Mechanical factors are also important in the onset of regional pain syndromes, although the precise risk factor (load, posture, repetitive movements) varies between individual sites. There is little evidence for considering widespread body pain as a distinct entity from regional pain syndromes - instead it is more appropriate to think of it as one end of the pain spectrum. Persons reporting widespread pain in population surveys were also demonstrated to have increased mortality, principally a doubling of the risk of cancel- death, over the subsequent decade. These remained true after removing those subjects who already had a diagnosis of cancer at the time of reporting widespread pain. Conclusions: The papers included in the thesis have demonstrated that both mechanical (injury) factors, and psychological/psychosocial factors have an important influence on the onset of pain, and that both clinical and psychological/psychosocial factors are strongly related to outcome. The results provide some insight in to interventions that may be successful with respect to possible primary (in high risk occupational groups) and secondary prevention of some of these episodes. The finding that widespread pain is associated with an increased risk of cancer death in the long-term requires confirmation

The prevalence of fibromyalgia in the general population : A comparison of the American College of Rheumatology 1990, 2010 and modified 2010 classification criteria

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Reduced hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity in chronic multi-site musculoskeletal pain : partly masked by depressive and anxiety disorders

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Persons with chronic widespread pain experience excess mortality : longitudinal results from UK Biobank and meta-analysis

This manuscript uses the UK Biobank resource (Application 1144). We acknowledge the authors of a previous meta-analysis on this topic (Diane Smith, Ross Wilkie, Olalekan Uthman, Joanne L. Jordan, John McBeth) whose published search strategy we used as the basis for our meta-analysis, albeit that our meta-analysis had a more restricted focus and the criteria for determining eligibility and the data we extracted from eligible studies was not identical and resulted in selection of a different group of studies. We thank John McBeth (University of Manchester) for providing additional data relating to one of the studies, to allow it be included in the meta-analysis. GJM had the idea for the study and together with GTJ designed the analysis plan for UK Biobank. GTJ undertook the UK Biobank analysis. MSB conducted the updated systematic review and all authors participated in undertaking the meta-analysis. GJM drafted the manuscript but all authors made an important intellectual contribution to the text. None of the authors report conflict of interest.Peer reviewedPostprin