• Note that this study was published as an abstract and presented at a conference. These data and conclusions should be considered to be preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

TAMPA — Widespread pain that persists a year after a motor vehicle accident actually begins within weeks of the insult and should be treated as early as possible, researchers suggested here.

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About 10% of individuals injured in motor vehicle accidents suffer pain that — instead of decreasing within the first 6 weeks after the incident — develops into nonremitting pain that may increase, reported June Hu, MA, a statistician with the TRYUMPH Research Program at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

“Over four million adults present to U.S. emergency departments each year after motor vehicle collisions,” Hu told MedPage Today at her poster presentation during the annual meeting of the American Pain Society. “The great majority of these individuals are discharged to home after emergency department evaluation, but a subset of these individuals develop motor vehicle collision-related widespread pain which is characterized by substantial suffering and functional loss.”

“We believe that this research indicates that doctors have to start treating these individuals with persistent widespread pain very early, and not wait for the pain to resolve in itself,” she told MedPage Today.

Hu and colleagues identified 895 individuals injured in motor vehicle accidents who presented at the emergency department and then were discharged home after evaluation. Of that group, 78 people had widespread pain at 1 year, she said.

She explained that the majority of individuals who were evaluated after the accident with widespread pain saw their pain reduced substantially at 6 weeks, and it was virtually nonexistent at 6 months.

But in the other group, pain intensified in the 6 weeks after the accident, and then remained constant, still reaching intensity at 1 year that was similar to the pain felt immediately after the accident. Hu described this as a “non-recovery” model of widespread pain.

She said researchers determined that individuals with persistent widespread pain followed a non-recovery trajectory — that is, their pain experience failed to remit after the initial pain-causing accident. “Determining the course of motor vehicle collision widespread pain development would advance understanding of this vexing and poorly understood disorder,” Hu said.

In this study, researchers analyzed data from a cohort of adult European Americans who presented to the emergency departments after motor vehicle collision — a median of 74 minutes after the crash. Participants completed an interview evaluation in the emergency departments and at 6 weeks, 6 months, and 1 year following the motor vehicle collision.

Evaluation at each time point included an assessment of pain in 19 body regions. If pain in a body region was reported, the motor vehicle collision-relatedness of the pain was assessed. Only motor vehicle collision-related pain was included in analyses. Relatively few individuals experienced a substantial increase in the number of body regions with pain from 6 weeks to 1 year.

“Further studies are needed to determine biopsychosocial factors that mediate the development of early motor vehicle collision widespread pain and non-recovery,” Hu reported. “Such understanding will inform the development of secondary preventive interventions.”