RESEARCH ARTICLE

Pain, not chronic disease, recurrence of depressive a S ig et re to x Insight into risk factors for the recurrence of depressive and anxiety disorders is necessary in order to identify pain can lead to negative coping strategies, disability and reduced quality of life [25,26], which might in turn Gerrits et al. BMC Psychiatry 2014, 14:187 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-244X/14/187sion relapse in 278 randomized trial subjects [31]. ABoechorststraat 7, 1081 BT Amsterdam, The Netherlands Full list of author information is available at the end of the articlestrategies to prevent new episodes as well as individuals who might benefit from long-term treatment [13]. lead to a further depressive or anxiety episode. Finally, shared pathophysiological mechanisms have been pos-tulated for chronic somatic diseases and pain, on the one hand, and depression and anxiety, on the other [27-29]. So far, there is limited evidence for the effect of chronic diseases, especially specific diseases, and pain on depression and anxiety recurrence [30]. One study found that higher pain severity predicted depres