James Jack E, Hardardottir Drifa
Department of Psychology, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland.
Br J Health Psychol. 2002 May;7(Pt 2):149-62. doi: 10.1348/135910702169411.
In light of inconsistencies in the reported effects of attention and anxiety on pain tolerance, this study examined the separate and combined effects of attention focus and trait anxiety on tolerance of acute experimental pain.
Participants with 'high' and 'low' trait anxiety were assigned to three attention-focus conditions: pain-focused attention, 'undirected' (no experimenter-induced attempts to influence attention focus) and distraction.
Several indices of autonomic arousal (systolic and diastolic blood pressure, heart rate and EMG) were measured before and during, and several self-report inventories were completed before and after, each of two administrations of the cold pressor test.
In general, pain tolerance was greater when participants were distracted and in low- rather than high-anxiety participants. However, attention and anxiety interacted such that low-anxiety participants were most pain tolerant, and high-anxiety participants were least pain tolerant, in the undirected condition.
The results are consistent with the notion that anxiety fosters attentiveness to possible environmental threats, and might have implications for the clinical management of acute pain.
鉴于注意力和焦虑对疼痛耐受性的影响报道存在不一致，本研究考察了注意力焦点和特质焦虑对急性实验性疼痛耐受性的单独及联合影响。
将具有“高”和“低”特质焦虑的参与者分配到三种注意力焦点条件下：专注于疼痛的注意力、“无定向”（无实验者诱导的影响注意力焦点的尝试）和分散注意力。
在两次冷加压试验的每次试验之前和期间测量自主唤醒的几个指标（收缩压和舒张压、心率和肌电图），并在每次试验之前和之后完成几个自我报告量表。
总体而言，当参与者注意力分散时疼痛耐受性更高，且低焦虑参与者比高焦虑参与者疼痛耐受性更高。然而，注意力和焦虑存在交互作用，即在无定向条件下，低焦虑参与者疼痛耐受性最高，高焦虑参与者疼痛耐受性最低。
结果与焦虑促进对可能的环境威胁的关注这一观点一致，并且可能对急性疼痛的临床管理有影响。
