• Fiona J Clay, Wendy L Watson, Stuart V Newstead, and Roderick J McClure.
• Monash University, Monash Injury Research Institute, Clayton Campus, Victoria.
• Pain Res Manag. 2012 Jan 1; 17 (1): 35-44.

BackgroundAcute orthopedic trauma contributes substantially to the global burden of disease.ObjectivesThe present systematic review aimed to summarize the current knowledge concerning prognostic factors for the presence of persistent pain, pain severity and pain-related disability following acute orthopedic trauma involving a spectrum of pathologies to working-age adults.MethodsThe Ovid MEDLINE and EMBASE databases were searched for level II prognostic studies published between January 1996 and October 2010. Studies that were longitudinal and reported results with multivariate analyses appropriate for prognostic studies were included. Studies that addressed two specific injury types that have been the subject of previous reviews, namely, injuries to the spinal column and amputations, were excluded.ResultsThe searches yielded 992 studies; 10 studies met the inclusion criteria and were rated for methodological quality. Seventeen factors were considered in more than one cohort. There was strong evidence supporting the association of female sex, older age, high pain intensity, preinjury anxiety or depression, and fewer years of education with persistent pain outcomes. There was moderate evidence supporting the association between postinjury depression or anxiety with persistent pain, and that injury severity was not a risk factor for ongoing pain.ConclusionMany individuals experience persistent pain following acute trauma. Due to the lack of studies, the use of different constructs to measure the same factor and the methodological limitations associated with many of the studies, the present review was only able to reliably identify a limited set of factors that predicted persistent pain. Recommendations for the conduct of future methodologically rigorous studies of persistent pain are provided.

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