• Tiago Coelho and Constança Paúl.
• Department of Occupational Therapy, School of Allied Health Technologies, Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal.
• Pain Med. 2017 Apr 1; 18 (4): 693-701.

ObjectiveTo examine the relationship between frailty and pain, particularly to analyze whether pain predicts physical, psychological and social frailty, after controlling for the effects of life-course determinants and comorbidity.DesignCross-sectional.MethodsA nonprobabilistic sample of 252 community dwelling elderly was recruited. Frailty and determinants of frailty were assessed with the Tilburg Frailty Indicator and pain was measured with the Pain Impact Questionnaire. Hierarchical and logistic regression analyses were conducted.ResultsIn this study, 52.4% of the participants were aged 80 years and over, and 75.8% were women. Pain and frailty were higher in women, and physical frailty was higher in those aged ≥80 years. After controlling for the effects of the determinants and comorbidity, pain predicted 5.8% of the variance of frailty, 5.9% of the variance of physical frailty, and 4.0% of the variance of psychological frailty, while the prediction of social frailty was nonsignificant. Overall, a greater pain impact score was associated with the presence of frailty (odds ratio 1.06; 95% CI 1.03–1.10; P < 0.001).ConclusionFrailty was independently predicted by pain, emphasizing the importance of its treatment, potentially contributing to the prevention of vulnerability, dependency, and mortality. Nonetheless, longitudinal studies are required to better understand the possible association between pain and frailty.© 2015 American Academy of Pain Medicine. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com

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