Are persons with fibromyalgia or other musculoskeletal pain more likely to report hearing loss? A HUNT study

Table 2 Local vs widespread musculoskeletal pain disorders without fibromyalgia

		Local musculoskeletal pain (LMS)	Widespread musculoskeletal pain (WMS)	Comparison LMS vs WMS (P-value)^a
Total	N (%)	8 749 (100)	10 059 (100)
Women	N (%)	4 158 (47.52)	5 790 (57.56)	0.000
Age	Mean (SD)	50.65 (16.21)	52.50 (14.91)	0.000
Single	N (%)	3 067 (35.06)	3 273 (32.54)	0.000
Education				0.000
Primary school	N (%)	2 937 (33.57)	4 105 (40.81)
High school	N (%)	3 805 (43.49)	4 131 (41.07)
Higher	N (%)	2 007 (22.94)	1 823 (18.12)
Audiometry (MTH)	Mean (SD)	17.26 (14.81)	18.00 (14.78)	0.001
HADS-A^b	Mean (SD)	4.13 (3.11)	5.07 (3.63)	0.000
HADS-D^b	Mean (SD)	3.48 (2.97)	4.14 (3.27)	0.000

MTH = mean threshold of hearing based on pure tone audiometry at frequencies 0.5, 1, 2 and 4 kHz on both ears
HADS-A = self-reported questionnaire for symptoms of anxiety
HADS-D = self-reported questionnaire for symptoms of depression
^aDescriptive comparison of categorical variables performed with chi-square and continuous variables with two-sided t-test
^bMissing data from several participants on this variable. Applicable for FM, MSD and Ref

ISSN: 1471-2474