ArticleAnnals of medicine2026
Network analysis of multisite chronic pain in middle-aged and older adults in Western China.
Article in Annals of medicine, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundMultisite chronic pain (MCP) is a growing public health concern among aging populations worldwide, disproportionately affecting underdeveloped regions of low- and middle-income countries where pain awareness and management capacity remain limited. This study aimed to investigate MCP prevalence and co-occurrence patterns, identify key sites, and explore subgroup heterogeneity among middle-aged and older adults in Yunnan Province, western China. MATERIALS AND
methodsA cross-sectional study was conducted using multi-stage stratified random cluster sampling to recruit 5,346 participants aged 45 years and older, and demographic characteristics and pain status across 30 body sites were collected using structured questionnaires. The Ising model was applied to eatimate pairwise associations between pain sites, and Network Comparison Test (NCT) was performed to evaluate pain pattern differences.
resultsThe prevalence of MCP was 29.83%. Co-occurrence patterns were dominated by bilateral symmetry (e.g. left-right knee, weight = 4.93), followed by adjacent-region pain (e.g. right upper arm-right elbow, weight = 4.26). Conversely, contralateral adjacent sites showed negative association (e.g.,left calf-right knee, weight = -3.24). The left calf, right thigh, right knee, right calf, and left knee were identified as core pain sites, whereas the left hip, left thigh, neck, left buttock, and chest served as bridge nodes. Notably, no statistically significant differences in MCP networks were detected across gender, age, and ethnic subgroups.
conclusionsMCP remains disproportionately prevalent and exhibits structured pain patterns. The identified network characteristics provide new insights into pain co-occurrence and may inform future research and pain management strategies in resource-limited settings.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.