Unveiling the Mask: The Relationship of Chronic Pain and Psychopathology

When tapering opioid therapy, frontline practitioners may at times be faced with chronic pain patients suffering from undiagnosed mental health disorders. In most cultures, the majority of mental health cases go unrecognized in primary care settings. About 60% of previously undetected cases could have been recognized if the patients had been evaluated for a mental health disorder. Research has shown that chronic pain is most often associated with depression, anxiety, and somatoform, personality, and substance use disorders, but less is known about the relationship with other conditions, such as schizophrenia spectrum/psychotic, sleep-wake, bipolar, neurocognitive, obsessive compulsive, and dissociative disorders. The purpose of this presentation is to help providers learn more about mental health disorders, how they are defined, and how the definitions have changed in the latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The results of a pilot study looking at the prevalence rates of these new dsm disorders among patients who suffer from chronic pain will be delineated.