Although the effects of postherpetic neuralgia on physical and emotional functioning have been examined in a number of studies, the impact of acute pain in herpes zoster ("shingles") on health-related quality of life has been neglected. We describe the characteristics of herpes zoster pain and examine its relationship to physical, role, social, and emotional functioning in 110 patients with herpes zoster. When we controlled for relevant covariates, we found that greater pain burden, as assessed by the product of pain intensity and duration, was associated with poorer physical functioning, increased emotional distress, and decreased role and social functioning. The results demonstrate that herpes zoster pain has broad effects on the daily lives of patients and on their emotional health. The increasing incidence of herpes zoster that can be anticipated as the population ages requires that clinical trials that examine interventions to prevent or treat herpes zoster pain be given a high priority.
This study determined whether different types of special education placements affected children's attitudes toward learning handicapped peers in a school where no clinical labels were used. Traditionally these peers would have been labeled “learning disabled” and “educable mentally retarded.” Seventy-seven fourth- through sixth-graders judged the capabilities of peers depicted in written vignettes as attending one of two types of placement: a resource room or a special classroom. These placements were identical to those found in the children's school. Children saw resource room targets as significantly more capable than special class targets. This indicated that educational placements alone could act as de facto labels. Older children were found to have higher expectations of peers regardless of placement. Implications for teachers and researchers were discussed.
These results suggest that items included in the disease conviction scale that reflect consequences of pain and illness, rather than disease conviction, may have contributed to the relationships that have been reported between disease conviction and other aspects of the chronic pain experience.
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