Measuring the impact of chronic pain on populations: A narrative review

To become relevant from a population and social medicine perspective, a chronic disorder and its implications and consequences must become clinically or otherwise visible, interfere with social roles and relations, impact on social institutions, and/or elicit organized responses from the health care, social, and/or welfare system. This chapter presents and discusses a limited number of variables characterizing the social implications and consequences of chronic pain. It covers the predicament of chronic pain, using the example of back pain; classifying the impact of chronic pain; and the consequences of the chronic pain syndrome with population impact, using back pain as the example.