Department of Applied Social Studies, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong.
Health Qual Life Outcomes. 2010 Jan 7;8:1. doi: 10.1186/1477-7525-8-1.
The impact of pain and depression on health-related quality of life (QoL) is widely investigated, yet the pain-depression interactions on QoL remain unclear. This study aims to examine the pain-depression-QoL mediation link.
Pain severity were assessed in a sample of Chinese professional teachers (n = 385). The subjects were also assessed on depressive symptoms and QoL. Regression models were fitted to evaluate the pain-depression-QoL relationships.
About 44% of the sample had 3-5 painful areas in the past 3 months. Shoulder pain (60%) and headache (53%) were common painful areas. The results of regression analyses showed that pain mediated the effects of depression on the mental aspect of QoL (standardized beta = -0.111; Sobel test: z = -3.124, p < 0.005) whereas depression mediated the effects of pain on the physical aspect of QoL (standardized beta = -0.026; Sobel test: z = -4.045, p < 0.001).
Our study offered tentative evidence that pain and depression impacted differently on the mental and physical aspect of QoL. As these findings were based on a Chinese teacher sample, future studies should employ more representative samples across cultures to verify the present data.
疼痛和抑郁对健康相关生活质量（QoL）的影响已得到广泛研究，但疼痛-抑郁对 QoL 的相互作用尚不清楚。本研究旨在探讨疼痛-抑郁-QoL 的中介关系。
对中国职业教师样本（n=385）进行疼痛严重程度评估。还评估了受试者的抑郁症状和生活质量。回归模型用于评估疼痛-抑郁-QoL 之间的关系。
约 44%的样本在过去 3 个月内有 3-5 个疼痛部位。肩痛（60%）和头痛（53%）是常见的疼痛部位。回归分析的结果表明，疼痛中介了抑郁对 QoL 心理方面的影响（标准化β=-0.111；Sobel 检验：z=-3.124，p<0.005），而抑郁中介了疼痛对 QoL 生理方面的影响（标准化β=-0.026；Sobel 检验：z=-4.045，p<0.001）。
我们的研究提供了初步证据，表明疼痛和抑郁对 QoL 的心理和生理方面有不同的影响。由于这些发现基于中国教师样本，未来的研究应在不同文化中采用更具代表性的样本来验证现有数据。
