Papers of the Week

The extent to which pain is distributed across the body (spreading of pain) differs largely among patients with chronic pain conditions and widespread pain has been linked to poor quality of life and work disability. A longer duration of pain is expected to be associated with more widespread pain, but studies are surprisingly scarce. Whether spreading of pain is associated with clinical presentation and treatment outcome in patients seen in interdisciplinary multimodal pain rehabilitation programs (IMMRPs) is unclear. The association between spreading of pain and (1) pain duration (2) clinical presentation (eg, pain intensity, pain-related cognitions, psychological distress, activity/participation aspects and quality of life) and (3) treatment outcome were examined.