Chronic musculoskeletal pain is defined as pain lasting three months or more, affecting muscles, joints, or bones.
Secondary analysis of pre-existing, anonymised, and routinely collected clinical data. This study aims to use previously collected data from the Paediatric Chronic Pain Team in West Sussex which is a multidisciplinary team that serves a whole county in England and provides multidisciplinary care for children (under 18) experiencing chronic musculoskeletal pain. The design is therefore a secondary analysis of pre-existing, anonymised, and routinely collected data. Data has been collected at one point in time during the child’s initial assessment and presented per year therefore, eleven cross sectional datasets over the years 2014-2024 have been collected. Office of National Statistics (ONS) data on population estimates for children (0-17) living in the county of West Sussex per year can be accessed via Normis, a service provided by ONS (www.nomisweb.co.uk). Because the service serves the whole county, the incidence of new cases of chronic musculoskeletal pain diagnosed in multidisciplinary care per year can be established. At the time the data was collected it was not the intention to use it for research but to inform clinical care and for service development and audit. Ethical approval was given to analyse the anonymised data to answer a new research question: What is the incidence (number of new cases) of children (under 18 years) diagnosed with chronic musculoskeletal pain with or without a known disease or structural cause, in a multidisciplinary clinical setting, in West Sussex, per year? The sample size at registration reflects the full data set before the inclusion and exclusion has been applied.
1. Children and young people aged under 18 years 2. Assessment by the Paediatric Chronic Pain Team in West Sussex 3. A diagnosis of chronic primary musculoskeletal pain or chronic secondary musculoskeletal pain 4. Pain duration of more than three months 5. For chronic secondary pain, pain that can be related to an identifiable underlying medical condition 6. For chronic primary pain, pain that is not accounted for by another condition and for which there is no clear underlying medical cause 7. Assessment occurring within the 11-year study period covered by the dataset
1. Children who are not living in the county of West Sussex, including those resident in bordering counties such as Hampshire, Surrey, or East Sussex 2. Children who have previously been assessed by the Paediatric Chronic Pain Team for the same presenting problem 3. Children who require further medical investigation at the time of assessment 4. Children who no longer have musculoskeletal pain at the time of assessment