Abstract
Objective: We examined the correlation between osteoarthritis (OA) pain and mental health. Methods: Two hundred sixty-six participants were interviewed weekly for 12 weeks from May 2021-August 2021, with the WOMAC pain subscale and the 5-item Mental Health Inventory being measured (MHI-5). We used linear regression to investigate correlations controlling for age, gender, body mass index, and medication usage. To account for the correlation between repeated measurements, generalized estimating equations were employed. In a case crossover study, we also used conditional logistic regression to examine the relationship between MHI-5 and the probability of pain flare. Ethical approval was obtained from KSUMC number (# LP-178929). Results: There were 75 males and 191 women in all. The average age was 65.0, the average BMI was 31.5, and 82 percent had knee as their main location. The mean WOMAC score in the quartile was 2.93 Vs 4.57 (p for trend across quartiles 0.001). In the case crossover study (91 participants), the poorest MHI5 quartile had 2.1 times the chances of a pain flare the following week as the best MHI-5 quartile (p0.001). Conclusion: We found a link between poorer mental health indicators, OA pain, and the likelihood of pain flares. General mental health is a controllable component of health that may offer a novel approach to preventing OA pain flares.