ABSTRACT
Previous research has shown that individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI) are significantly impaired on emotion recognition tasks. In this study, the relationship between neuropsychological functioning and emotion recognition was examined in 11 individuals with moderate to severe TBI and a control group of 13 individuals matched for age,sex, and education. Emotion recognition stimuli were from Ekman and Friesen's pictures of facial affect. The group with TBI showed neuropsychological deficits consistent with those commonly found following moderate to severe TBI. The group with TBI also identified significantly fewer emotion recognition stimuli than the control group. The number of correctly identified emotion recognition stimuli was significantly correlated with measures of verbal cognitive processing in the group with TBI. These findings suggest that the role of left hemisphere brain mechanisms in the recognition of facial (nonverbal)emotion may be more important than previously recognized.
Subject(s)
Brain Injuries/physiopathology , Discrimination, Psychological/physiology , Emotions/physiology , Facial Expression , Perceptual Disorders/physiopathology , Recognition, Psychology/physiology , Adult , Brain Injuries/complications , Case-Control Studies , Female , Functional Laterality , Head Injuries, Closed/complications , Head Injuries, Closed/physiopathology , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Neuropsychological Tests , Perceptual Disorders/etiology , Visual Perception/physiologyABSTRACT
The literature indicates a substantial overlap between chronic pain and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in individuals who sustain accidental injury. To date, however, there have been no studies of PTSD symptoms in individuals who experience work-related injury. Consequently, we assessed 139 consecutive injured workers using the Modified PTSD Symptom Scale (Falsetti, Resnick, & Kirkpatrick, 1993), as well as a number of general measures of psychopathology. Most participants reported chronic pain and all were receiving workers compensation. Results indicated that 34.7% and 18.2% of the sample reported symptoms consistent with PTSD and partial PTSD, respectively. When PTSD symptom frequency and severity were considered criterion variables in multiple regression analyses, depression was found to be significantly associated with the former and anxiety sensitivity, social fears, and somatic focus with the later. Finally, these measures of general psychopathology correctly classified 78.6% of individuals with PTSD and 81.3% of those with no PTSD. These results suggest that a considerable proportion of injured workers display symptoms consistent with PTSD and that these symptoms are related to general negative affect. Implications, including the suggestion of clinical intake screening of PTSD in this population, are discussed.
Subject(s)
Accidents, Occupational/psychology , Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic/diagnosis , Wounds and Injuries/psychology , Adult , Chronic Disease , Discriminant Analysis , Female , Humans , Male , Occupational Diseases/psychology , Occupational Diseases/rehabilitation , Pain/psychology , Pain/rehabilitation , Personality Inventory , Psychiatric Status Rating Scales , Regression Analysis , Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic/psychology , Surveys and Questionnaires , Wounds and Injuries/rehabilitationABSTRACT
The present study assessed the prevalence and impact of social phobia and other anxiety disorders in disabled workers with chronic musculoskeletal pain. Potential participants were 200 disabled workers consecutively referred to an interdisciplinary tertiary care centre. A two stage screening process was used in which: (a) a self-report battery was given during a pre-admission visit, and (b) pre-planned selection criteria were applied to the self-report instruments to select patients for a structured diagnostic interview. Fifty-four of the 146 patients who provided complete responses on the self-report battery met criteria for interview. Twenty-six patients (17.8%) met DSM-IV criteria for a current anxiety disorder and, of these, 16 (11.0%) were diagnosed with social phobia. Subjects with social phobia rated themselves as having less social support than subjects with no psychiatric disorder, but the groups did not differ in pain-related life interference, personal control, or health care utilization. The results suggest that social phobia is over-represented in disabled workers with chronic musculoskeletal pain and should be noted as a comorbid condition that may compound both suffering and disability.
