The purpose of this study is to evaluate the prevalence of
musculoskeletal pain and the use of
analgesics in two random cohorts of home-dwelling older people 10 years apart (1999 (N = 2044) and 2009 (N = 1610)) in Helsinki, Finland, and to explore which patients characteristics are associated with potential undertreatment or overtreatment of
pain. In 1999, the prevalence of daily
joint pain interfering with functioning was 16.4% and that of
back pain 13.9% among 75-85-year-old people, the respective figures being 21.9% and 17.1% in 2009 (p < 0.001). The proportion of those patients suffering from
joint pain and using prescribed
analgesics for that was 35.5% in 1999 and 41.5% in 2009 (p < 0.001). The corresponding figures for patients suffering from
back pain with
analgesics were 38.2% and 48.2% (p < 0.001), respectively. In 2009, 66.1% suffered from any
musculoskeletal pain and 28.7% of them were prescribed
analgesics, the figures being more frequent among women than men. In addition to higher age, female gender, and painful conditions, also psychiatric symptoms and
dizziness tended to be independently associated with
analgesic prescriptions. Among persons not reporting
pain (N = 545) psychiatric symptoms were overrepresented in the group using prescribed
analgesics (22.4% vs. 8.1%, p < 0.05). In conclusion,
musculoskeletal pain is still clearly undertreated, but the coverage has increased during 10 years. In addition to
pain, several patient characteristics, functioning and psychiatric symptoms, especially, were associated with
analgesic prescriptions.