PAIN & AGING SECTION Original Research Article Physical and Psychosocial Health in Older Women with Chronic Pain: Comparing Clusters

Background. This investigation examined why some elderly women with severe pain symptoms and impairment in health status were not seen in a tertiary care pain center. Methods. Three groups of older (60 years) women were included in the study: women seeking chronic pain treatment at a multidisciplinary pain center (N = 49), and research volunteers from the same institution with (N = 28) and without (N = 27) chronic pain. A clustering classification technique was used to identify clusters of older women with similar physical and mental health status. Results. We found three clusters: 1) a healthy cluster (cluster 1: mostly nonclinical women); 2)