Characteristics of chronic musculoskeletal pain sufferers treated in a university-affiliated complementary and integrative health care clinic

Abstract

Chronic pain is a substantial driver of high health care costs and disability, and disparities in the experience and treatment of pain based on age, sex and race are significant. Patients seeking complementary and integrative health (CIH) approaches for chronic pain are dramatically under-studied, therefore we assessed the role of nutritional, genetic and other factors in a sample of chronic musculoskeletal (MSK) pain sufferers from a unique patient population seeking complementary and integrative health (CIH) care at an urban university-affiliated clinic.