Pain-Related Fear and Its Disabling Impact in Hypermobile Adolescents With Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain

STUDY DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. BACKGROUND: Chronic musculoskeletal pain (CMP) has a negative impact on physical functioning. During adolescence, joint hypermobility is a potential risk factor for developing CMP, and pain-related fear contributes to the persistence of CMP. Whether pain-related fear and hypermobility are related, and even reinforce each other, resulting in a stronger association with perceived level of disability, is still unknown. OBJECTIVES: To evaluate whether pain-related fear has a stronger association with disability in hypermobile compared to nonhypermobile adolescents with CMP. (5) METHODS: The study included 116 adolescents with CMP. The presence of hypermobility was assessed using the Beighton score. Measures of pain intensity, age, sex, and pain-related fear were collected and included in the multivariable model. Hierarchical regression analysis, with disability as the dependent variable, was used to examine the interaction between hypermobility and pain-related fear. RESULTS: Hypermobile adolescents with CMP do not have more pain-related fear compared to nonhypermobile adolescents with CMP. There was no interaction effect between hypermobility and pain-related fear in explaining disability (beta = .20, P = .42). Similarly, perceived harmfulness of balance-related activities was not more strongly associated with disability in hypermobile adolescents with CMP. CONCLUSION: The association of pain-related fear with the perceived level of disability is not more pronounced in hypermobile compared to nonhypermobile adolescents with CMP.