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The global burden of chronic pain and disability could be related to unmet surgical needs. This systematic review and meta-analysis aims to characterise existing data regarding the prevalence and associations of chronic pain in low-income and middle-income countries; this is essential to allow better assessment of its relationship to pre-operative and post-operative pain as emergency and essential surgical services are expanded.

According to PRISMA guidelines, we searched PubMed, PsycInfo, and Cochrane registries for articles published before Dec 31, 2013, using the search terms "pain AND (chronic OR persistent) AND (low income countries OR middle income countries OR LMIC OR Africa OR Asia OR Central America OR South America) AND (incidence OR prevalence)." We excluded paediatric populations (aged younger than 18 years) and those with acute pain or pain associated …