• Stefano Paolucci, Marco Iosa, Danilo Toni, Piero Barbanti, Paolo Bovi, Anna Cavallini, E Candeloro, Alessia Mancini, Mauro Mancuso, Serena Monaco, Alessio Pieroni, Serena Recchia, Maria Sessa, Davide Strambo, Michele Tinazzi, Giorgio Cruccu, Andrea Truini, and Neuropathic pain special interest group of the Italian Neurological Society.
• *Fondazione Santa Lucia IRCCS, Rome, Italy;
• Pain Med. 2016 May 1; 17 (5): 924-30.

ObjectivePain prevalence data for patients at various stages after stroke.DesignRepeated cross-sectional, observational epidemiological study.SettingHospital-based multicenter study.SubjectsFour hundred forty-three prospectively enrolled stroke survivors.MethodsAll patients underwent bedside clinical examination. The different types of post-stroke pain (central post-stroke pain, musculoskeletal pains, shoulder pain, spasticity-related pain, and headache) were diagnosed with widely accepted criteria during the acute, subacute, and chronic stroke stages. Differences among the three stages were analyzed with χ(2)-tests.ResultsThe mean overall prevalence of pain was 29.56% (14.06% in the acute, 42.73% in the subacute, and 31.90% in the chronic post-stroke stage). Time course differed significantly according to the various pain types (P < 0.001). The prevalence of musculoskeletal and shoulder pain was higher in the subacute and chronic than in the acute stages after stroke; the prevalence of spasticity-related pain peaked in the chronic stage. Conversely, headache manifested in the acute post-stroke stage. The prevalence of central post-stroke pain was higher in the subacute and chronic than in the acute post-stroke stage. Fewer than 25% of the patients with central post-stroke pain received drug treatment.ConclusionsPain after stroke is more frequent in the subacute and chronic phase than in the acute phase, but it is still largely undertreated.© 2015 American Academy of Pain Medicine. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

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