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The relationships between worry, happiness and pain catastrophizing in the experience of acute pain
Author(s) -
Lefebvre John C.,
Jensen Mark P.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
european journal of pain
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.305
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1532-2149
pISSN - 1090-3801
DOI - 10.1002/ejp.1405
Subject(s) - worry , pain catastrophizing , psychology , mood , physical therapy , affect (linguistics) , happiness , chronic pain , anxiety , clinical psychology , medicine , psychiatry , psychotherapist , communication
Background The current study aimed to (a) evaluate the effects of an experimental manipulation of worry and happiness on pain perception and measures of worry about pain and pain catastrophizing and (b) 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. Significance The current study shows that manipulation‐induced changes in pain‐related worry, pain catastrophizing, and affect have direct effects on the experience of acute pain. More broadly, the overlap of these three variables provides with anxiety and mood disorders offers the promise of new vistas for research and treatment of pain conditions by assessing and targeting the cognitions and behaviors that are common to worry and catastrophizing.