Chronic Pain, Sleep Disturbance and Fatigue in Individuals with Lower Limb Amputation

Abstract

Chronic pain is affected by factors that can either reduce or increase a person’s pain level, two of which are sleep disturbance and fatigue. Although research has been done on these relationships in other disease conditions, there has been minimal research on individuals with amputations who suffer from chronic pain with either fatigue or sleep disturbance, leaving a gap in knowledge. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of fatigue and sleep disturbance in persons after a lower limb amputation. A secondary purpose was to determine correlations among fatigue, sleep and chronic neuropathic pain. This descriptive exploratory study was conducted at two local prosthetic offices. A convenience sample (N = 25) with participants being primarily male (80%) with a below the knee amputation (64%). The results of this study showed a total pain score of M= 41.64 ± SD 43.41 on a 22-item scale. The 6-item subscale of neuropathic pain had a M = 10.72 + SD 10.83. A positive correlation between neuropathic pain and fatigue was statistically significant (r=.56, n = 25, p < .01). There was also a positve correlation with neuropathic pain and sleep (r = .49, n = 25, p < .05). In conclusion we found that neuropathic pain level is affected by fatigue and sleep in this population. Further studies are needed in order to fully understand the effect sleep disturbance and fatigue have on neuropathic pain, as well as to determine potential multimodal treatment.