Study links chronic and acute pain with depression

Researchers in the United Kingdom found that pain “significantly increased risk of depression,” according to a study published Wednesday in Science Advances journal.

The study, funded by several international and national organizations including the Bethesda, Maryland-based National Institute of Mental Health, used data from 431,038 UK Biobank participants with 14-year follow-up, examining contributing factors such as lifestyle and obesity.

The study found that the increase in depression was “irrespective” of where the pain is experienced or the duration, whether it be post-injury or post-operative acute or chronic pain experienced for more than three months. The depression risk increased with the number of co-occurring pain sites on the body, researchers found.

The authors wrote that their “findings corroborate existing results demonstrating positive associations between pain conditions and depression” and that previous studies “have generally focused on patients with chronic pain, leaving the association between acute pain and depression largely unknown.”

“Acute pain may be overlooked in depression research because it is often associated with tissue damage that disappears upon tissue healing,” the authors wrote. “Yet, our study indicated significantly detrimental effects of acute pain on depression risk.”