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Abstract

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the relationship between catastrophism and somatosensory, emotional and cognitive dimensions of pain in patients with advanced cancer. Seventy patients (22M,48F) of mean age 52.7 years with advanced cancer, stage II-IV, participated in the study. Karnofsky Performance Status ranged between 90 and 60, ean pain intensity was 2.2, SD 1.7 (range 0-5). Duration of cancer ranged between 2 and 240 months. 37% of patients had breast cancer, 1.8% prostate, 3.6% head or neck, 10.7% lung/bronchus, 17.9% colorectal, 28.6% other. Catastrophizing related to pain (CAT) was assessed with the Pain Coping Strategy Questionnaire (CSQ), and somatosensory, emotional and cognitive dimensions of pain were evaluated using the Multidimensional Affect and Pain Survey (MAPS). MAPS contains 101 pain and emotion descriptors grouped into 30 clusters and 3 Superclusters (SC): I. Somatosensory Pain SC, II. Emotional Pain SC, and III. Wellbeing SC. Descriptive statistics, t-test for independent samples, and Pearson correlations were used to evaluate the data. No gender differences were found, and patients' performance status did not correlate with CAT. CAT correlated highly with 5 of 8 clusters within the MAPS Emotional Pain SC: Fear (r ϭ 0.38, pϭ0.001), Anxiety (r.ϭ 0.35, pϭ0.003), Fatique (r ϭ 0.35, pϭ0.004), Anger (r.ϭ 033, pϭ0.005) and Response to Illness (ailing/suffering) (r ϭ 0.32, pϭ0.007), and with 6 of 17 clusters of the MAPS Somatosensory Pain SC: Cutaneous Sensation (r ϭ 0.34, pϭ0.004), Sensory Distress (r ϭ0.33,pϭ0.006), Intermittent Pressure (r ϭ 0.32, pϭ0.006), Incisive Pressure (r ϭ 0.37, pϭ0.002), Traction/Abrasion (r ϭ 0.33, pϭ0.006) and Intense pain (r ϭ0.32, pϭ0.007). Surprisingly, CAT did not correlate significantly with any cluster within the MAPS Well-being SC. Catastrophizing about pain in cancer patients is related to negative feelings such as fear, anxiety and anger, and to somatosensory characteristics of pain.