Saturday, April 20, 2019

The Relationships between Worry, Happiness, and Pain Catastrophizing in the Experience of Acute Pain

Abstract

Background

The current study aimed to (1) evaluate the effects of an experimental manipulation of worry and happiness on pain perception and measures of worry about pain and pain catastrophizing and (2) determine if changes in situation‐specific worry about pain and pain catastrophizing would be related to changes in acute pain.

Methods

The study included 120 healthy, pain‐free volunteers. Participants were exposed to four levels of noxious stimulation and asked to report on the pain intensity, worry about pain, and pain catastrophizing they experienced during the stimulation procedures. They were then randomly assigned to either a Happy or a Worry condition, where they were exposed to emotion induction procedures. The noxious exposure procedures and measures of pain, pain‐related worry, and pain catastrophizing were then repeated.

Results

Participants in the Worry condition reported significant increases in pain intensity, and those in the Happy condition reported significant decreases in pain intensity. Further, the Worry condition participants reported significant increases in both pain‐related worry and pain catastrophizing, while the Happy condition showed the opposite effects. Finally, changes in worry about pain and pain catastrophizing were found to mediate the impact of the affect induction procedure on pain intensity.

Conclusions

The findings demonstrate that pain intensity, worry about pain and pain catastrophizing are all sensitive to changes in mood. The results have potential clinical implications.

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from Wiley: European Journal of Pain: Table of Contents http://bit.ly/2XvAO6v
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