Ever noticed how a bad back can make even the sunniest of days feel cloudy?
Ever wondered why your favourite footballer is out for longer for the same injury that someone else had?
If you’ve answered yes, tread forward into the mindfield and
understand why this happens!
But before you begin…
Give this playlist a listen and vibe along while you read this blog!
You know when your elbows hurt or if you have twisted your ankle, it could mean that you have a musculoskeletal issue?
Such physical issues that affect bones, muscles, joints, and nerves are spread worldwide, with more than 1.7 billion people being affected annually. They can be insanely painful, affect how freely we can move and also contribute to other health problems like heart disease: which is linked to limited physical activity, a direct consequence of musculoskeletal issues.
Additionally, the impact of these conditions stretches beyond just physical health, affecting individuals’ mental well-being. Previous studies suggest a strong connection between musculoskeletal problems and mental health challenges such as depression and anxiety. Now you know why you don’t want to fetch groceries and just stay in bed when your legs hurt….I am totally not projecting myself onto you trust me….
This combination of physical and mental health has been found to influence different life situations like work life, medical recovery and social interactions. However…
What was the Previous Research Missing?
- Relationship between Mental Health and Musculoskeletal Health is not explored well within hospital settings
- Lack of use of standardised objective measuring tools to analyse mental disorders for people coming to hospitals for physical issues
What we studied
We studied the already collected data of 750 people (464 Females, 285 Males and 1 Intersex individual) who went to Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital London for musculoskeletal problems. The analysed data included patients’ case history characteristics and responses to the Mood and Worry questionnaire (more widely known as PHQ-ADS) which assessed their depression and anxiety symptoms in the past three weeks.
The case history included the patient’s different diagnoses which were classified into 6 categories: Hip & Knee, Foot & Ankle, Shoulder & Elbow, Bone Cancer, Peripheral Nerve Injury and Pain. It also included how long patients were hospitalised after getting surgery for their problems.
Questions we asked –
1. Whether depression and anxiety symptoms are of different levels for people with different musculoskeletal diagnoses?
2. Whether the tendency to harm ourselves is related to serious depression and anxiety symptoms?
3. Whether the more days spent in hospital by patients after surgery is correlated with the seriousness of their depression and anxiety symptoms?
Key Takeaways
- No relationship is found between the differences in depression and anxiety symptoms for the different musculoskeletal diagnoses
- The tendency to harm ourselves is significantly related to serious depression and anxiety symptoms
- Less days spent in hospital by patients after surgery was actually significantly correlated with the increasing seriousness of their depression and anxiety symptoms.
- This correlation was also found for males but no correlation was found for females
Possible Improvements
The dataset lacked information about spinal issues which have been found to influence mental health significantly. Analysing this diagnosis category further will improve the study’s real-world application.
Our study did not find the links between mental and musculoskeletal health based on characteristics like the patients’ income and ethnicity. Keeping these in mind for the future along other characteristics like age and gender will help improve the study’s application to a more widespread population.
Understanding how pain, which is associated with both mental and physical health plays a role in improving mental health for people with musculoskeletal problems will really help improve treatment practices.
Lumping different disorders into broad categories may have oversimplified complicated relationships since different musculoskeletal conditions have different levels of severity (for example- an ankle sprain is not as serious as arthritis). So studying their relationships separately with mental health may again improve hospital treatment practices!
How does this study Help us?
Our results can influence healthcare practices by developing interventional practices which focus on both musculoskeletal and mental health and help in earlier identification and thus, on prevention rather than cure!
The government can use our data to implement Policy Changes which provide adequate funding to tackling mental health within physical healthcare settings and also provide quick support for serious situations where people may have self-harming tendencies
Different settings like the Professional Sports Industry and Corporate workplaces can implement our findings to improve their practices for sportspersons and employees to provide them holistic support in dealing with stress, mental conditons and physical injuries.
Overall, our study helps to understand the importance of focusing on mental and physical healthcare together which can improve opportunities to feel better and enjoy life to the fullest. Here is a quote that says better than me:
“An ounce of prevention in healthcare is worth a pound of cure- both physically and mentally.”
– Benjamin Franklin
Literary References
Cano-García, L., Mena-Vázquez, N., Manrique-Arija, S., Redondo-Rodríguez, R.,
Romero-Barco, C. M., & Fernández‐Nebro, A. (2021). Ability to Participate in Social
Activities of Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients Compared with Other Rheumatic Diseases: A
Cross-Sectional Observational Study. Diagnostics, 11(12), 2258.
https://doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics11122258
Garnæs, K. K., Mørkved, S., Tønne, T., Furan, L., Vasseljen, O., & Johannessen, H. H. (2022). Mental health among patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain and its relation to number of pain sites and pain intensity, a cross-sectional study among primary health care patients. BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, 23(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12891-022-06051-9
Geneen, L. J., Moore, R. A., Clarke, C., Martin, D., Colvin, L., & Smith, B. H. (2017). Physical
activity and exercise for chronic pain in adults: an overview of Cochrane Reviews.
Cochrane Library, 2020(2). https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.cd011279.pub3
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Ribas, T. M., Teodori, R. M., Mescolotto, F. F., De Lima Montebelo, M. I., Baruki, S. B. S., &
Pazzianotto‐Forti, E. M. (2020). Impact of physical activity levels on musculoskeletal
symptoms and absenteeism of workers of a metallurgical company. Revista Brasileira De Medicina Do Trabalho, 18(04), 425–433. https://doi.org/10.47626/1679-4435-2020-572
Tyrovolas, S., Moneta, V., Giné-Vázquez, I., Koyanagi, A., Abduljabbar, A. S., & Haro, J. M. (2020). Mental Disorders, Musculoskeletal Disorders and Income-Driven Patterns: Evidence from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 9(7), 2189. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm9072189
World Health Organization: WHO. (2022, July 14). Musculoskeletal health. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/musculoskeletal-conditions
Credits
1. Cover image by Jeffrey F Lin on Unsplash.
2. Meme used is self-created.
830 words, 5 minute read