Original articlesGender differences in chronic pain—findings from a population-based study of Norwegian adults
Section snippets
Sample and data collection procedures
A sample of 4,000 Norwegian citizens, aged 19 to 81 years, was randomly drawn from the National Register by Statistics Norway. This National Register, established by the Norwegian government in 1878, provides survey research data that are representative of the entire Norwegian population. The members of the sample were sent a questionnaire in November 2000 that invited them to participate in a study that was focused on evaluating QOL, health status, fatigue, hope, and pain in the general
Response rate
As outlined in Figure 1, of the 4,000 questionnaires sent out, 56 participants could not be contacted because of an unknown address or recent death. After the two mailings, 1,912 questionnaires were returned in all, which gives a response rate of 48.5%. Prior to the second mailing, 85% of the 1,912 responses had been returned.
Based on the demographic data from the National Register by Statistics Norway, a comparison was made between respondents and nonresponders. The overall characteristics of
Discussion
This study is the first to evaluate for gender differences in the factors that predict present pain intensity in a sample of individuals with chronic pain who were drawn from the general population in Norway. Of note, the percentage of explained variance in pain now differed between women (28%) and men (38%). In addition, although some of the variables that made significant independent contributions to the total explained variance (e.g., the presence of a chronic disease) were similar for both
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