Predictors and social consequences of daily pain expectancy among adults with chronic pain.

Previous research suggests that for people living with chronic pain, pain expectancy can undermine access to adaptive resources and functioning. We tested and replicated the unique effect of pain expectancy on subsequent pain through 2 daily diary studies. We also extended previous findings by examining cognitive and affective antecedents of pain expectancy and the consequences of pain expectancy for daily social enjoyment and stress. In study 1, 231 individuals with rheumatoid arthritis completed 30 end-of-day diaries. Results of multilevel structural equation model showed that controlling for today's pain, pain expectancy predicted next day pain. In study 2, diary assessments of affective, cognitive, and social factors were collected during the morning, afternoon, and evening for 21 days from a sample of 220 individuals with fibromyalgia. Results showed that both positive affect and the extent to which pain interfered with daily activities in the afternoon predicted evening pain expectancy in the expected direction. However, negative affect and pain coping efficacy were not associated with pain expectancy. Consistent with study 1, more than usual evening pain expectancy was related to greater next morning pain. We also found that next morning pain predicted next afternoon social enjoyment but not social stress. The findings of these 2 studies point to the importance of promoting positive affect and reducing pain expectancy as a way of decreasing the detrimental effect of chronic pain on enjoyable social experiences.

Evidence against mood-congruent attentional bias in Major Depressive Disorder.

Depression is consistently associated with biased retrieval and interpretation of affective stimuli, but evidence for depressive bias in earlier cognitive processing, such as attention, is mixed. In five separate experiments, individuals with depression (three experiments with clinically diagnosed major depression, two experiments with dysphoria measured via the Beck Depression Inventory) completed three tasks designed to elicit depressive biases in attention, including selective attention, attentional switching, and attentional inhibition. Selective attention was measured using a modified emotional Stroop task, while attentional switching and inhibition was examined via an emotional task-switching paradigm and an emotional counter task. Results across five different experiments indicate that individuals with depression perform comparably with healthy controls, providing corroboration that depression is not characterized by biases in attentional processes.

Stress-related clinical pain and mood in women with chronic pain: moderating effects of depression and positive mood induction.

BACKGROUND: Chronic pain with comorbid depression is characterized by poor mood regulation and stress-related pain. PURPOSE: This study aims to compare depressed and non-depressed pain patients in mood and pain stress reactivity and recovery, and test whether a post-stress positive mood induction moderates pain recovery. METHODS: Women with fibromyalgia and/or osteoarthritis (N = 110) underwent interpersonal stress and were then randomly assigned by pain condition and depression status, assessed via the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression scale, to positive versus neutral mood induction. RESULTS: Depression did not predict stress-related reactivity in despondency, joviality, or clinical pain. However, depression × mood condition predicted recovery in joviality and clinical pain; depressed women recovered only in the positive mood condition, whereas non-depressed women recovered in both mood conditions. CONCLUSIONS: Depression does not alter pain and mood stress reactivity, but does impair recovery. Boosting post-stress jovial mood ameliorates pain recovery deficits in depressed patients, a finding relevant to chronic pain interventions.