Department of Clinical Psychological Sciences, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
Eur J Pain. 2010 Jul;14(6):648-53. doi: 10.1016/j.ejpain.2009.10.012. Epub 2009 Dec 1.
Patients with chronic pain are not only faced with disabilities but are also challenged to maintain a valued sense of self. This sense of self is in part determined by the extent to which patients can accomplish their identity-related goals. The present study explores the content of three domains of the self, namely the ideal, ought and feared self and examines how the content relates to disability and depression. The ideal, ought and feared attributes of 80 chronic low back pain patients were analyzed and categorized in eight general goal-domains: interpersonal attributes, personal abilities, physical, emotional and psychological well-being, close interpersonal relationships, self-expression abilities, achievement-related attributes, physical appearance, and religion. Results showed that most of the attributes that patients generated involved interpersonal attributes. Comparisons between the self-guides revealed that ideal attributes were more intrapersonally focused while ought and feared attributes were interpersonally focused. The content appeared to be related to disability but not to depression. More specifically, the more disabled patients were, the more they listed well-being related attributes as part of their ought self. None of the other goal-domains was related to disability or depression. The present study provides additional insight into the goals of patients with chronic pain at the level of identity and has shown that these are, at least in part, related to the level of functional disability. These results might be useful for future studies incorporating the role of identity in chronic pain, such as psychological interventions.
慢性疼痛患者不仅面临残疾，还面临着维持有价值的自我感的挑战。这种自我感部分取决于患者实现与身份相关目标的程度。本研究探讨了自我的三个领域的内容，即理想自我、应该自我和恐惧自我，并研究了它们与残疾和抑郁的关系。分析并分类了 80 名慢性腰痛患者的理想自我、应该自我和恐惧自我的属性，分为八个一般目标领域：人际关系属性、个人能力、身体、情感和心理健康、亲密人际关系、自我表达能力、与成就相关的属性、身体外貌和宗教。结果表明，患者生成的大多数属性涉及人际关系属性。自我指导的比较表明，理想属性更侧重于个人内在，而应该自我和恐惧自我则更侧重于人际关系。内容似乎与残疾有关，但与抑郁无关。更具体地说，残疾程度越高的患者，越会将与健康相关的属性列为他们应该自我的一部分。其他目标领域都与残疾或抑郁无关。本研究在身份层面上为慢性疼痛患者的目标提供了更多的深入了解，并表明这些目标至少部分与功能残疾程度有关。这些结果可能对未来的研究有用，如心理干预，这些研究将身份的作用纳入慢性疼痛。
