The relationships between worry, happiness and pain catastrophizing in the experience of acute pain.

BACKGROUND: The current study aimed to (a) evaluate the effects of an experimental manipulation of worry and happiness on pain perception and measures of worry about pain and pain catastrophizing and (b) determine if changes in situation-specific worry about pain and pain catastrophizing would be related to changes in acute pain. METHODS: The study included 120 healthy, pain-free volunteers. Participants were exposed to four levels of noxious stimulation and asked to report on the pain intensity, worry about pain and pain catastrophizing they experienced during the stimulation procedures. They were then randomly assigned to either a Happy or a Worry condition, where they were exposed to emotion induction procedures. The noxious exposure procedures and measures of pain, pain-related worry and pain catastrophizing were then repeated. RESULTS: Participants in the Worry condition reported significant increases in pain intensity, and those in the Happy condition reported significant decreases in pain intensity. Further, the Worry condition participants reported significant increases in both pain-related worry and pain catastrophizing, while the Happy condition showed the opposite effects. Finally, changes in worry about pain and pain catastrophizing were found to mediate the impact of the affect induction procedure on pain intensity. CONCLUSIONS: The findings demonstrate that pain intensity, worry about pain and pain catastrophizing are all sensitive to changes in mood. The results have potential clinical implications. SIGNIFICANCE: The current study shows that manipulation-induced changes in pain-related worry, pain catastrophizing, and affect have direct effects on the experience of acute pain. More broadly, the overlap of these three variables provides with anxiety and mood disorders offers the promise of new vistas for research and treatment of pain conditions by assessing and targeting the cognitions and behaviors that are common to worry and catastrophizing.

The effect of neuroticism on the recall of persistent low-back pain and perceived activity interference.

UNLABELLED: The assessment of persistent pain often relies on recalling and then summarizing the entire pain experience using a single rating. Newer methodologies, such as the Original Pain Recall Assessment, ask people to recall the pain they experienced over a specific period of time by tracing a single line in a graph to represent their pain levels. One advantage of this approach is that one can compare recalled levels of pain with actual daily diary pain ratings. This methodology was used to investigate the effects of neuroticism on the recall of levels and patterns of persistent pain. The study involved 70 participants who completed a measure of neuroticism, depressive symptoms, and up to 15 daily diaries that asked for ratings of pain intensity, pain unpleasantness, and activity interference due to pain. Following completion of the daily diary period, the participants were asked to recall the entire diary period using the Original Pain Recall Assessment methodology. The analyses revealed that higher levels of neuroticism were related to significantly better recall of the variability of pain unpleasantness over time. Furthermore, individuals who reported higher levels of depressive symptoms were less accurate in the recall of pain in general. PERSPECTIVE: Memory for pain is crucial in the assessment of pain, with little research devoted to the study of this topic. The current study demonstrates that people higher on neuroticism had better recall of pain unpleasantness, and people with higher levels of depressive symptoms had poorer recall of pain in general.

Pain behavior in rheumatoid arthritis patients: identification of pain behavior subgroups.

This study used Ward's minimum variance hierarchical cluster analysis to identify homogeneous subgroups of rheumatoid arthritis patients suffering from chronic pain who exhibited similar pain behavior patterns during a videotaped behavior sample. Ninety-two rheumatoid arthritis patients were divided into two samples. Six motor pain behaviors were examined: guarding, bracing, active rubbing, rigidity, grimacing, and sighing. The cluster analysis procedure identified four similar subgroups in Samples 1 and 2. The first subgroup exhibited low levels of all pain behaviors. The second subgroup exhibited a high level of guarding and low levels of other pain behaviors. The third subgroup exhibited high levels of guarding and rigidity and low levels of other pain behaviors. The fourth subgroup exhibited high levels of guarding and active rubbing and low levels of other pain behaviors. Sample 1 contained a fifth subgroup that exhibited a high level of active rubbing and low levels of other pain measures. The results of this study suggest that there are homogeneous subgroups within rheumatoid arthritis patient populations who differ in the motor pain behaviors they exhibit.

One- and two-item measures of pain beliefs and coping strategies.

Pain-related beliefs and pain coping strategies are central components of current cognitive-behavioral models of chronic pain, and have been found in numerous studies to be associated significantly with psychosocial and physical disability. However, the length of most measures of pain-related beliefs and coping restricts the ability of clinicians and researchers to perform a thorough assessment of these variables in many situations. The availability of very brief versions of existing scales would make possible the assessment of a range of important pain beliefs and coping strategies in settings where subject or patient assessment burden is an issue. In this study, one- and two-item versions of the subscales of several commonly used measures of pain beliefs and coping strategies were developed using both rational and empirical procedures. The findings support the validity of these brief subscales. The appropriate use and limitations of these measures are discussed.

The social context of gastrointestinal cancer pain: a preliminary study examining the relation of patient pain catastrophizing to patient perceptions of social support and caregiver stress and negative responses.

A number of studies have shown that catastrophizing is an important predictor of pain and disability in persons having persistent pain conditions. The newly developed communal model of catastrophizing maintains that catastrophizing is a part of broader, interpersonal style of coping in which coping efforts are directed at interpersonal goals, rather than solely at pain reduction. This study examined the potential interpersonal correlates of pain catastrophizing in a sample of 70 patients having gastrointestinal cancers and their caregivers. Measures of pain catastrophizing, perceptions of social support, pain level, and pain behavior were obtained from patients. Caregivers completed measures that included their judgments about the patient's pain level, caregiver stress, and their tendency to engage in negative responses (critical or avoidant behaviors). Overall, patients who engaged in catastrophizing reported receiving higher levels of instrumental support. Caregivers of patients who catastrophized, rated the patient as having more pain and engaging in more pain behavior. Caregivers of patients who catastrophized, also reported higher levels of caregiver stress and critical behaviors. Taken together, these preliminary findings suggest that pain catastrophizing has interpersonal correlates and support the need for additional research examining the social context of pain catastrophizing.

Memory for pain: the relationship of pain catastrophizing to the recall of daily rheumatoid arthritis pain.

OBJECTIVE: The assumption that individuals are capable of accurately recalling past painful experiences has been a fundamental tenet of a number of cognitive-behavioral theories of pain, including the gate control theory. However, there has been very little research on the topic in the past, and the results have often been contradictory. A general conclusion that can be drawn is that memory for pain is variable, and there is need to identify what factors contribute to this variability in memory for pain. The current study examined the relation of catastrophizing to the recall of persistent pain associated with rheumatoid arthritis. METHODS: Participants in this study were 45 individuals with persistent pain due to rheumatoid arthritis. Each participant was asked to complete a daily pain diary for a period of 30 days. Participants were subsequently asked to recall the pain they experienced over the entire period of time rather than provide a single, average rating. RESULTS: The results of a series of hierarchical regression analyses indicated that level of catastrophizing was related to the recall of both pain intensity and pain variability. This relation was statistically significant even after controlling for actual pain and variability and other background variables. CONCLUSIONS: Participants who scored higher on catastrophizing demonstrated better accuracy in the recall of general pain intensity and pattern over a 30-day diary period. The results of the study are discussed in terms of future studies as well as their potential clinical importance.

Understanding the adoption of arthritis self-management: stages of change profiles among arthritis patients.

Clinical observations and recent studies suggest that arthritis patients vary considerably in their involvement in self-management efforts. In the literature on health promotion, there is growing recognition that patients may be at different stages of change with respect to the adoption of self-management strategies. The major goal of the present study was to examine whether cluster analysis could be used to identify homogeneous subgroups of patients having persistent arthritis pain based on their responses to a stages of change questionnaire. Participants in this study (103 patients having rheumatoid arthritis and 74 patients having osteoarthritis) completed a stages-of-change measure specific to adoption of a self-management approach to their arthritis. A cluster analysis identified five distinct subgroups of arthritis patients: (1) precontemplation - 44% of the sample; (2) contemplation - 11% of the sample; (3) preparation - 22% of the sample; (4) unprepared action - 6% of the sample; and (5) prepared maintenance - 17% of the sample. These subgroups are generally consistent with what might be expected based on the transtheoretical model of stages of change by Prochaska and DiClemente (Prochaska JO, DiClemente CC. Towards a comprehensive, transtheoretical model of change: states of change and addictive behaviors. In: Miller WR, Heather N, editors. Applied clinical psychology, 2nd ed. Treating addictive behaviors, New York: Plenum Press, 1998. pp. 3-24.), and may have important clinical implications. For example, it is possible that the arthritis subgroups identified may predict arthritis patients' participation in and responsiveness to pain-coping skills training, exercise interventions, or other formal self-management training programs. Also, one may be able enhance the outcomes of self-management interventions for arthritis by tailoring treatment to the patient's particular stage.

The relationship of gender to pain, pain behavior, and disability in osteoarthritis patients: the role of catastrophizing.

One hundred and sixty-eight patients with osteoarthritis (OA) of the knees participated in this study. Of the participants, 72 were men and 96 were women. All participants completed the Arthritis Impact Measurement Scales (AIMS), underwent a 10 min standardized observation session to assess their pain behavior, and completed the Catastrophizing Scale of the Coping Strategies Questionnaire (CSQ) and the Depression Scale of the Symptom Checklist 90 Revised (SCL-90R). The study found that there were significant differences in pain, pain behavior, and physical disability in men and women having OA. Women had significantly higher levels of pain and physical disability, and exhibited more pain behavior during an observation session than men. Further analyses revealed that catastrophizing mediated the relationship between gender and pain-related outcomes. Once catastrophizing was entered into the analyses, the previously significant effects of gender were no longer found. Interestingly, catastrophizing still mediated the gender-pain relationship even after controlling for depression. These findings underscore the importance of both gender and catastrophizing in understanding the OA pain experience and may have important implications for pain assessment and treatment.

Everyday life with osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis: independent effects of disease and gender on daily pain, mood, and coping.

The effects of disease (form of arthritis) and gender on pain, mood, and pain coping strategies were examined in a prospective 30-day diary study of 71 patients with osteoarthritis (OA) and 76 with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Diary instruments included joint pain ratings, POMS-B checklists for positive and negative mood, and the Daily Coping Inventory. Women's average daily pain was 72% greater than men's pain, and RA patients' average daily pain was 42% greater than OA patients' pain. Hierarchical Linear Models were estimated for (a) within-person associations between pain and next-day mood; coping and next-day pain; and coping and next-day mood; and (b) the independent effects of disease and gender on individual intercepts for pain, mood, and coping and on individual slopes for pain-coping-mood relations. Women, regardless of their disease, and RA patients, regardless of their gender, reported more daily pain. Women used more emotion-focused strategies each day than did men, regardless of their disease and even after controlling for their greater pain. Men were more likely than women to report an increase in negative mood the day after a more painful day. RA patients' pain worsened, but OA patients' pain improved, following a day with more emotion-focused coping. Implications for research and clinical practice are summarized.

Pain coping and the pain experience in children with juvenile chronic arthritis.

This study examined the pain experience and pain coping of children with juvenile chronic arthritis (JCA). The purpose of the study was to describe present pain and the pain coping strategies utilized by children with juvenile chronic arthritis and examine pain coping strategies and pain efficacy as a predictor of pain intensity and distribution. Fifty-six children with JCA rated their present pain using two measures of pain intensity, the Oucher and the pain thermometer, and reported on the number of pain locations using a body map. In addition, each child completed the Child Version of the Coping Strategies Questionnaire (CSQ-C) and health status was determined by a physician's disease activity rating. On average, children reported current pain in the low to middle range on the different pain scales, although there was considerable variability in pain ratings. Up to 30% of all children had pain ratings higher than or equal to the middle range on both the Oucher and the pain thermometer. On average, children reported pain in more than two body areas. Correlational analyses were conducted to examine how the composite factors on the CSQ-C (Pain Control and Rational Thinking, and Coping Attempts) related to variations in reported pain intensity and location. Children who scored higher on the Pain Control and Rational Thinking factor of the CSQ-C had much lower ratings of pain intensity and reported pain in fewer body areas. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that disease activity and scores on the Pain Control and Rational Thinking factor of the CSQ-C each accounted for a unique, statistically significant proportion of variance in the measures of pain intensity and pain location. Behavioral and cognitive therapy interventions designed to increase pain coping efficacy may be useful adjuncts in treating pain in children with chronic arthritis.