Musculoskeletal pain in people with and without type 2 diabetes in Taiwan: a population-based, retrospective cohort study

Musculoskeletal pain in people with type 2 diabetes is a common issue even to this day. The study aimed to explore the 10-year cumulative incidence of musculoskeletal pain, the mean number of doctor visits for musculoskeletal pain, and the mean number of doctor visits for musculoskeletal pain by location in people with type 2 diabetes, compared with respective values for people without diabetes. The study utilized a population-based retrospective cohort study design. The subjects were randomly obtained from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database. The diabetic group included 6586 people with type 2 diabetes aged 18-50 years, while the non-diabetic group consisted of 32,930 age- and sex-matched people. Based on the medical records of individuals with musculoskeletal pain in the two groups from 2001 to 2010, the 10-year cumulative incidence of musculoskeletal pain, the mean number of doctor visits for musculoskeletal pain, and the mean number of doctor visits for musculoskeletal pain by location were calculated and compared, with the aim of identifying differences between the two groups. Showed that people in the diabetic group had a higher 10-year cumulative incidence of and a higher mean number of doctor visits for musculoskeletal pain than the non-diabetic group (p