Canadian Research in Brief

Child abuse and chronic pain in a community survey of women

(2007), Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Volume 22, Issue 12, pp. 1536-1554.
Authors

Walsh, Christine A.
Jamieson, Ellen
MacMillan, Harriet
Boyle, Michael

This study examined the relationship between self-reported history of child physical and sexual abuse and chronic pain among women (N = 3381) as determined by secondary analyses of the Ontario Health Survey and the Ontario Mental Health Supplement. Regression analyses tested the relationships between chronic pain and childhood abuse, age, socioeconomic status, physical health and mental health. Chronic pain was significantly associated with physical abuse, not finishing high school, and age of the respondents, but was unrelated to childhood sexual abuse alone or in combination with physical abuse, mental disorder (anxiety, depression, or substance abuse), or low income. This is the first large population-based study to demonstrate the relationship between childhood physical abuse and chronic pain in adulthood.