• Cara Sedney, Abigail Cowher, Nicholas A Turiano, Stephanie Cox, Patricia Dekeseredy, and Treah Haggerty.
• Department of Neurosurgery, Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia, USA. Electronic address: csedney@hsc.wvu.edu.
• World Neurosurg. 2023 Mar 1; 171: e846e851e846-e851.

BackgroundStigma is understood to be intersectional, meaning multiple characteristics can be stigmatizing, and they may be both overlapping and coconstitutive. Chronic pain and overweight are common complaints in the spinal surgery clinic. Since being overweight may relate to back pain in a complex fashion, we sought to understand if there is a moderating effect between weight bias and pain stigma.MethodsThis study involves a survey-based, quantitative, cross-sectional, observational design using previously validated measures and demographic and clinical information. There were 192 participants. Statistical calculations were done with statistical package for the social sciences.ResultsPain stigma was not significantly correlated with BMI (body mass index), and weight bias was not significantly correlated with back pain. There was a strong positive correlation between weight bias and pain stigma. There was a strong positive correlation between weight bias and BMI when pain stigma was also high.ConclusionsGiven the relationship between weight stigma and pain, the intersection of weight and pain stigma is important because it indicates the vulnerability of patients with higher BMI to other forms of stigma, such as stigma for their pain complaints. Clinicians should be mindful of expressing pain stigma more significantly amongst patients with higher BMI.Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

12 keywords...

hide…