Relationship Between Pain and Emotional State in Patients Undergoing Electromyography

Objective: The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between anxiety, depression and expected-experienced pain levels in patients undergoing electromyography (EMG). Met-hods: One hundred and eight patients were asked to complete Visual Analog Scale (VAS) immediately before and after Nerve Conduction Studies (NCS) and needle EMG (nEMG) in order to measure the level of expected and experienced pain . The patients also filled out the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI) and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) before the EMG test. The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory questionnaire was repeated by the patients immediately after EMG testing.Re-sults: We found no correlation between the VAS scores for the levels of expected- experienced pain and age, sex, height, weight, location, education, examiner, referral diagnosis, BDI, ASI or STAI. The highest VAS score was the expected VAS measurements for nEMG (4.7±2.2) while the lowest VAS score was the experienced VAS measurement for NCS (3.4±2.5). The expected VAS score was higher than experienced VAS score for nEMG (p=0.001). In women, expected VAS level for NCS was higher compared to that in men (p<0.05). VAS levels for nEMG were correlated with the number of examined muscles (p=0.001). The Beck Depression Inventory did not find depression in the study group (7.8±6.5). Anxiety Sensitivity Index score in our group was not different from the healthy control group (p=0.131; df=135). The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory questionnaire score immediately after EMG testing was increased compared to the pre-study score (p=0.00; df= 107). Conc-lu-si-on: The pain experience varies for different individuals as a result of different factors, such as gender, age, present expectation and previous experiences. Our study confirms that many patients had a higher anxiety level after the EMG study. This finding could be associated with patients’ worries about their test results and diagnosis. The anxiety levels may be reduced after completing the test by giving some information about their current condition/ test results. (Arc-hi-ves of Neu-ropsy-chi-atry 2012; 49: 48-52)