Headache, not neck pain, primarily influences the extent of pain in the neck region in symptomatic office workers. Cross-sectional and longitudinal evaluations.

BACKGROUND

Neck pain and headache are common among office workers and lead to a significant personal, societal and economic burden. Whether the area of pain or pain extent (PE) obtained from pain drawings by the office workers themselves can be explained and predicted by clinical outcomes such as pain intensity, frequency or disability is the aim of the current study.

OBJECTIVES

To examine whether clinical outcomes related to neck pain and headache can explain the PE in the head and neck region at baseline (cross-sectional analysis), and predict the PE at follow-up (longitudinal analysis) in office workers with neck pain and/or headache.

METHODS

Secondary analysis of a cluster randomized controlled trial with 112 participants. The focus of this analysis was on the associations between neck pain variables (occurrence, average and maximal pain intensity ratings, and disability) and headache variables (occurrence, headache intensity, frequency and impact) with PE of the two regions. Data was analyzed using general linear models for both cross-sectional and longitudinal data.

RESULTS

Headache occurrence and frequency explained 26% of the PE variance for the neck region at baseline. Further, baseline headache frequency, maximum neck pain intensity (p = .07). and age, could explain 21% of the variability in neck PE at follow-up: For the head region statistical assumptions for modeling data were not met.

CONCLUSION

Frequent headaches are closely related with PE in the neck region in symptomatic office workers. There is a strong need to additionally screen and assess for headache features in office workers with neck pain.

CLINICAL TRIAL NUMBER: NCT04169646. Registered November 15, 2019.