Chronic pain severity was measured in the group of individuals who endorsed having chronic pain and completed a detailed pain questionnaire, as part of the Q2 which included the following questions; the response categories are listed in Table 2. The four domains were selected based on their relevance to chronic pain and their role in contributing to physiological change and biological system dysregulation [2 (link), 5 (link), 24 (link)–29 (link)]:

Frequency: How often do you have this pain? (every day, ≥once a week, and ≥once a month).

Intensity: How strong would you say that the pain usually is? 10-item numeric rating scale:

0 = no pain and 10 = worst imaginable pain.

Time (duration): How long have you had this pain? (years or months).

Total pain sites: Where does it hurt? (head/face, jaw/temporomandibular joint, neck, back, shoulder, arm/elbow, hand, hip, thigh/knee/leg, ankle/foot, chest/breast, stomach, genitalia/reproductive organs, skin, or other locations).

A 50% frequency split was performed for each dimension, dichotomizing the variable to a 0 or 1 score. Chronic pain severity, based on the four frequently captured pain dimensions, frequency, intensity, time (duration), and total number of pain sites (FITT), ranged from 1 to 5 designated by a cumulative score resulting from a combined total of the dichotomized values from the four pain dimensions [0 dimensions = a value of 1; one dimension = 2; two dimensions = 3; three dimensions = 4; and four dimensions = 5]. Pain dimensions are presented in Table 2.
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