Knowing a resident’s mental health diagnosis could help nursing homes improve the way they assess and treat pain. 

A new study involving 2,500 facility residents found that those with depressive disorder, PTSD and substance use disorder diagnosis were more likely to have adverse trajectories for their pain frequency, severity and interference. Residents with dementia and severe mental illness diagnosis were less likely to have adverse trajectories for their pain.

“This may be clinically useful information for improving pain assessment and treatment approaches for nursing home residents,” the authors concluded.

Over a nine-month period, researchers with the Institute for Health & Aging at the University of California in San Francisco conducted a study that sought to use nursing home residents’ mental health disorders to help determine their pain trajectories. 

The researchers used MDS data to record residents’ demographics, mental health disorder diagnosis, pain characteristics and health and functioning outcomes.  

They also used growth mixture modeling to break that information down into several key subgroups, which included pain trajectories and the influence of mental health disorders on pain trajectories. 
Study findings were detailed Tuesday in Pain Medicine.