Psychosocial Phenotypes of Older Adults With Pain and Their Associated Clinical Outcomes

Abstract

A comprehensive understanding of the patterns of psychosocial characteristics in older adults with pain is needed. Our objectives were to (1) identify psychosocial phenotypes (comprising depression, anxiety, affect, self-realization, resilience, and social participation) among older adults with pain and (2) compare pain characteristics, physical health, and cognition among the identified phenotypes. Using cross-sectional 2021 data from the National Health and Aging Trends Study, we performed latent class analysis to identify four psychosocial phenotypes of older adults with pain ( N = 1903): Favorable (best psychosocial characteristics, 67.7%), Adverse (worst psychosocial characteristics, 4.9%), Intermediate (moderate scores on psychosocial variables, 12.6%), and Compensated (moderate scores with relatively high self-realization and resilience, 14.9%). Phenotypes with less psychosocial adversity had generally better clinical outcomes. Future research should explore precision pain management interventions in older adults based on their psychosocial phenotypes, longitudinal trajectories of phenotypes, and technology-based, point-of-care clinical insights for pain management.