Chronic pain in a psychiatric clinic.

Prevalence rate of chronic pain in a psychiatric outpatient clinic has been evaluated in this study and characteristics of chronic pain patients have been compared with non-pain psychiatric patients. Chronic pain was reported by 14.37% of psychiatric patients. Of these, 43% had dysthymic disorder, 20% had anxiety states and 20% somatoform disorders. As compared to the control group, chronic pain patients belonged more often to the middle age group (p less than 0.05), were more frequently females (p less than 0.001), married (p less than 0.02) and from an urban habitat. There is a marked difference in the diagnostic breakdown between the two groups with a predominance of dysthymic and anxiety disorders in pain patients. Very few chronic pain patients had psychosis. Major depression was found in equal proportions in pain and non-pain patients. The study identifies variables which differentiate chronic pain patients from other psychiatric patients.