Table 1.
Descriptive statistics and group-comparison at baseline.
Table 2.
Meteorological variables during the period of measurement, obtained at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute of Tromsø, latitude: 69.6537, longitude: 18.9373.
Table 3.
Linear mixed model analysis for pain intensity and pain unpleasantness reports.
Fig 1.
The relation between pain intensity, barometric pressure and relative humidity.
Predicted pain intensity was measured on a Numeric Rating Scale from 0–10. Barometric pressure in millibar, relative humidity in percentage. Arrows depict patients (n = 8) with an opposite response in pain reports compared to the majority of the patients (n = 40). Increased barometric pressure was the only weather parameter that significantly affected emotional measures. However, similarly to the pain data, the parameter estimates were small (stress: B = .007, t = 3.97; Tension: B = .003, t = 2.7, both p-values < .005), and increased barometric pressure were associated with elevated negative emotions. The emotional measures of stress and tension varied significantly within patients over the measurement period (Stress: B = .00041, 95% CI (B) = .00026–00067, Wald Z = 4.03, p < .001; Tension B = .00007, 95% CI (B) = .00004–0001, Wald Z = 3.17, p = .002).
Fig 2.
Group-difference in stress associated with barometric pressure.
Barometric pressure shown in millibar. Stress was measured on a Numeric Rating Scale from 0–10. Group 1 is the majority of patients who reported lower pain concomitantly with an increase in barometric pressure, whereas group 2 is the sub-group of patients reporting increased pain concomitantly with increased barometric pressure.
Table 4.
Moderator analysis for pain intensity and pain unpleasantness reports.