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Quality of life is a multidimensional complex phenomenon of significant interest to health care professionals. Chronic pain, which lies at the intersection between biology and culture, has been reported to affect every aspect of life and its quality. A review of the last 15 years of English research journal literature was conducted to attempt to understand the relationship between quality of life and chronic pain for adults. Electronic health-related databases were searched 1990-2005 using key terms quality of life (QOL) and pain/chronic pain, setting limits of English and adult when possible: Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL)-253 citations; MedLine-308; PsycINFO-58; REHABDATA-12; Sociological/Social Science Abstracts-3 each; and Web of Science-410. This search resulted in almost 1000 citations; a few were not readily available either onsite, on-line, or by interlibrary …