SUMMARY
We aimed to investigate the awareness of both types of chronic pain among patients and doctors.This prospective study was planned and coordinated by orthopedic and internal medicine clinics and included 100 patients with a diagnosis of knee OA. Patients with an OA diagnosis included those with NP linked to diabetes and those without NP, and these groups were compared using the visual analogue scale (VAS) and the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritic Index (WOMAC). Data analysis of both groups focused on descriptive statistics of demographic and clinical characteristics.The average WOMAC pain score for patients with NP was 4.33±1.2 while the score for VAS was 8.25±0.8. Patients without NP had a WOMAC pain score of 2.49±0.6 and a VAS of 6.28±1.8. It was observed that in these two knee OA patient groups, NP had a statistically significant enhancing effect on the WOMAC pain score and the VAS (p<0.001).Currently, when the source of pain that is not relieved after the frequently-performed arthroplasty is considered, the awareness level of NP among orthopedists should be increased and we believe multidisciplinary studies are required on this topic.