title: Prevalence and impact of chronic widespread pain in the Bangladeshi and White populations of Tower Hamlets, East London.
abstract: The prevalence and impact of chronic pain differ between ethnic groups. We report a study of the comparative prevalence and impact of chronic pain in Bangladeshi, British Bangladeshi and White British/Irish people. We posted a short questionnaire to a random sample of 4,480 patients registered with 16 general practices in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and conducted a longer questionnaire with patients in the waiting areas at those practices. We distinguished between Bangladeshi participants who were born in the UK or had arrived in the UK at the age of 14 or under (British Bangladeshi) and those who arrived in UK at the age of over 14 (Bangladeshi). We obtained 1,223/4,480 (27 %) responses to the short survey and 600/637 (94 %) to the long survey. From the former, the prevalence of chronic pain in the White, British Bangladeshi and Bangladeshi groups was 55, 54 and 72 %, respectively. The corresponding figures from the long survey were 49, 45 and 70 %. Chronic widespread pain was commoner in the Bangladeshi (16 %) than in the White (10 %) or British Bangladeshi (9 %) groups. People with chronic pain experienced poorer quality of life (odds ratio for scoring best possible health vs. good health (or good vs. poor health) 5.6 (95 % confidence interval 3.4 to 9.8)), but we found no evidence of differences between ethnic groups in the impact of chronic pain on the quality of life. Chronic pain is commoner and, of greater severity, in Bangladeshis than in Whites. On most measures in this study, British Bangladeshis resembled the Whites more than the Bangladeshis.
authors.affiliation: Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Centre for Primary Care and Public Health, 58 Turner Street, London, E1 2AB, UK.
authors.forename: Yasmin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Choudhury
authors.forename: Stephen A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Bremner
authors.forename: Anwara
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ali
authors.forename: Sandra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Eldridge
authors.forename: Chris J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Griffiths
authors.forename: Iqbal
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Hussain
authors.forename: Suzanne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Parsons
authors.forename: Anisur
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rahman
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Underwood
mesh_terms: D000069:Acculturation; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001459:Bangladesh / Q000208:ethnology; D059350:Chronic Pain / Q000208:ethnology*; D004522:Educational Status; D054242:Emigrants and Immigrants; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008131:London / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016017:Odds Ratio; D010147:Pain Measurement; D010865:Pilot Projects; D015995:Prevalence; D011788:Quality of Life; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D044465:White People; D055815:Young Adult