Pain score in hemophilia children and adolescents

Background: Hemophilia is an X-linked bleeding disorder. Bleeding attacks can induce acute pain, whereas long-term degenerations such arthropathy can produce chronic pain. Aim of the work: to evaluate the pain score and to assess factors affecting pain intensity in hemophilia children and adolescents. Patients and method: This study included 50 children and adolescents with hemophilia A/B, from 4years to 17 years. All children assessed with careful history taking; recording demographic, clinical data including factor level, annual bleeding rate (ABR) and arthropathy. Visual pain scale for all patients was assessed. Results: Pain score had significant weak negative correlation with factor level (p value =0.04). Moderate and strong significant positive correlation with ABR and number of target joints, respectively (p value=0.0001 for both). Conclusion: The more severity of factor deficiency, the more frequency of bleeding, the more arthropathy all leads to more pain to the suffering hemophilia children and adolescents. Key words: hemophilia, pain, ABR, arthropathy.