The cross-sectional relationship between pain and awareness of age-related changes

Background Awareness of positive and negative age-related changes (AARC gains and losses) captures the perceived changes that older individuals experience in several domains of their lives including physical, cognitive, and social functioning, interpersonal relationships, and lifestyle. Exploring antecedents of AARC is important to identify those individuals that could benefit the most from interventions promoting positive experiences of ageing and/or adaptation to age-related changes. This study investigates the experience of pain as a predictor of lower AARC gains and higher AARC losses. Methods Analyses are based on cross-sectional data from the PROTECT cohort (2019); 1,013 UK residents (mean (SD; range) age: 65.3 (7.1; 51.4 to 92) years, 84.4% women) completed measures of AARC and pain, and provided demographic information. Linear regression models were fitted to examine pain as a predictor of AARC gains and AARC losses. Results Higher levels of pain predicted more AARC losses both before (regression coefficient, B= 0.36; 95% CI: 0.29 to 0.42, p-value< 0.001; R2 = 0.11) and after adjusting for demographic covariates (B= 0.34; 95% CI: 0.27 to 0.40; p-value< 0.001; Partial R2 = 0.11). Pain was not significantly associated with AARC gains (unadjusted B= 0.05; 95% CI: -0.03 to 0.12, p-value= 0.21; Partial R2 = 0.01). Conclusions Individuals experiencing pain may perceive more AARC losses. Interventions aiming to decrease levels of pain could include a component targeting self-perceptions of ageing and/or promoting acceptance of the negative changes that can happen with ageing.