• Mary A Driscoll, Diana Higgins, Andrea Shamaskin-Garroway, Amanda Burger, Eugenia Buta, Joseph L Goulet, Alicia Heapy, Robert D Kerns, Cynthia A Brandt, and Sally G Haskell.
• VA Connecticut Healthcare System, Pain Research, Informatics, Multimorbidities, and Education (PRIME), A Health Services Research and Development Center of Innovation, West Haven, Connecticut.
• Pain Med. 2017 Sep 1; 18 (9): 1767-1777.

ObjectiveWomen veterans with chronic pain utilize health care with greater frequency than their male counterparts. However, little is known about gender differences in the use of specialty pain care in this population. This investigation examined gender differences in self-reported use of opioids, interventional pain treatments, rehabilitation therapies, and complementary and integrative health (CIH) services for chronic pain treatment both within and outside of the Veterans Health Administration in a sample of veterans who served in support of recent conflicts.MethodsParticipants included 325 veterans (54% women) who completed a baseline survey as part of the Women Veterans Cohort Study and reported deployment-related musculoskeletal conditions and chronic pain. Measures included self-reported use of pain treatment modalities, pain severity, self-rated health, access to specialty care, disability status, and presence of a mental health condition.ResultsMen were more likely to report a persistent deployment-related musculoskeletal condition but were no more likely than women to report chronic pain. Overall, 21% of the sample reported using opioids, 27% used interventional strategies, 59% used rehabilitation therapies, and 57% used CIH services. No significant gender differences in use of any pain treatment modality were observed.ConclusionsUse of pain specialty services was common among men and women, particularly rehabilitative and CIH services. There were no gender differences in the self-reported use of different modalities. These results are inconsistent with documented gender differences in pain care. They encourage further examination of gender differences in preferences and other individual difference variables as predictors of specialty pain care utilization.2017 American Academy of Pain Medicine. This work is written by US Government employees and is in the public domain in the US.

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