Pain catastrophizing and social support in married individuals with chronic pain: the moderating role of pain duration

Abstract

In the current study, 96 married chronic pain patients were recruited from the community to test hypotheses about the roles of catastrophizing and psychological distress in relation to perceived support from close others. It was expected that pain duration would moderate the relationship between catastrophizing and perceived support and between catastrophizing and psychological distress. In addition, distress was hypothesized to mediate the relationship between the pain durationcatastrophizing interaction and support. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that pain duration interacted with catastrophizing such that at shorter pain durations, pain catastrophizing was related to more perceived solicitous spouse responses; however no such relationship existed for patients with longer pain durations. In contrast, catastrophizing was significantly related to less perceived spousal support (i.e. support not specific to pain) in patients with longer durations of pain whereas no significant relationship existed for patients with shorter pain durations. Pain duration did not interact with catastrophizing in relating to psychological distress, which precluded the examination of distress as a mediator between the pain duration-catastrophizing interaction and support. Moreover, psychological distress did not significantly mediate the relationships between pain catastrophizing and perceived support. These findings are discussed in the context of cognitive-behavioral and interpersonal perspectives of pain.

Partner Behavioral Responses to Pain Mediate the Relationship Between Partner Pain Cognitions and Pain Outcomes in Women With Provoked Vestibulodynia

“…Unfortunately, despite the intended protective function of solicitous responses, the associations with pain appear to be negative, both in this sample and in other chronic pain conditions, which may be due to solicitousness encouraging patient pain avoidance behaviors 4,10,26,31 . Future research using longitudinal models or daily diary studies may help clarify the relationship between solicitousness and avoidance.…”

The Effect of Perceived Injustice on Appraisals of Physical Activity: An Examination of the Mediating Role of Attention Bias to Pain in a Chronic Low Back Pain Sample

“…Conversely, it is possible that higher injustice perceptions may contribute to greater interpretation of anger and sadness in the social environment; this may in turn stress social interactions/relationships that can already be challenging for individuals with chronic pain [2,3,19]. Again, such speculation must be tested empirically.…”

Chronic Pain in a Couples Context: A Review and Integration of Theoretical Models and Empirical Evidence

“…Couples change over time, leading to changes in the way spouse responses are perceived. 15 Cano et al 14 did not find support for these interactions in their study of clinic ICPs, perhaps because they also examined pain severity and physical disability as predictors of symptoms, whereas Kerns et al and Turk et al did not. Cano et al also found that negative spouse responses were uniquely associated with anxiety symptoms in ICPs from a clinic, even after controlling for the effects of pain severity and physical disability.…”