The Expression of Pain Behaviors in High Catastrophizers: The Influence of Automatic and Controlled Processes

Surgeon identification of pain catastrophizing versus the Pain Catastrophizing Scale in orthopedic patients after routine surgical consultation

“…Résultats : Sur 203 patients (109 femmes et 94 hommes), le score PCS moyen a été de 18,4 (écart-type 12,9), sans différence liée au sexe ni corrélation significative avec l'âge des patients. Sur les 40 patients ayant obtenu un score de 30 ou plus à l'échelle PCS, 22 (55 %) n'ont pas été identifiés comme présentant des niveaux élevés de dramatisation par les chirurgiens.…”

“…To an extent, the ability to code pain behaviours associated with high levels of catastrophizing can be made reliable in a research setting with trained personnel. 12 In principle, this would be superior to asking the surgeon to identify catastrophizing by patient affect and presentation. Ensuring that clinicians are sufficiently educated about physical manifestations of catastrophizing and pain behaviours to match the accuracy of a research environment would be challenging.…”

An Evolutionary Perspective on Pain Communication

“…For instance, limping can be regarded as protective, as it serves to favor an injured body part, whereas facial expression is considered to be communicative, as it does not serve a protective function and, at the same time, is easily discernible for observers. Further, communicative pain behavior is regarded as being more under conscious control than protective pain behavior ( Martel, Trost, & Sullivan, 2012 ) and is more pronounced when the sufferer is intending to communicate pain ( Sullivan et al, 2006 ). Both types can signal pain to others, however, observer judgments of pain-related limitations are rather influenced by protective pain behaviors ( Martel, Wideman, et al, 2012 ).…”

Meta‐cognitive beliefs about worry and pain catastrophising as mediators between neuroticism and pain behaviour

“…The ways in which people experience and overtly react to pain have been widely examined using observational studies in laboratory and clinical settings (Keefe & Smith, 2002). Of particular interest to researchers has been the phenomenon of pain catastrophising, described as the tendency to exaggerate the threat value of pain, as well as a predisposition to respond to it with rumination and worry, which (1) has been linked to an increase in subjective pain experienced in experimental conditions (Eccleston & Crombez, 2007;Martel, Trost, & Sullivan, 2012;Sullivan, Rouse, Bishop, & Johnston, 1997) and in chronic pain populations (Sturgeon & Zautra, 2013), and (2) has been shown to influence outward pain behaviours in experimental settings (Sullivan, Adams, & Sullivan, 2004;Sullivan et al, 1997). Furthermore, research has suggested that pain catastrophising or painrelated fear is more disabling (Crombez, Vlaeyen, Heuts, & Lysens, 1999), and is more emotionally distressing (Edwards, Cahalan, Mensing, Smith, & Haythornthwaite, 2011;Sullivan, Rodgers, & Kirsch, 2001) than the pain itself.…”