The relationship between gender and family history of pain with current pain experience and awareness of pain in others

This study aimed to evaluate the relationship between family history of pain and current pain experience in a student population. In a sample of 180 students who completed a pain history questionnaire there was a significant difference between males and females with women reporting significantly more pain models than men even when menstrual pain models were excluded from the analysis. There was also a difference on current pain symptoms, with women reporting more pain symptoms but this difference was no longer significant when menstrual pain was excluded. These results suggest that differences observed between sexes in a young student population in relation to current pain symptom reports may be accounted for by the presence of menstrual pain rather than by differences in family history of pain as it has previously been suggested. The higher incidence of pain models reported by females for menstrual as well as non-menstrual pain suggests a greater awareness of pain in others without implying a greater tendency for the young females as a group to report pain themselves. (C) 1998 International Association for the Study of Pain. Published by Elsevier Science B.V.