Pieritz Karoline, Rief Winfried, Euteneuer Frank
Division of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Philipps University Marburg, Marburg, Germany.
Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat. 2015 Aug 19;11:2109-16. doi: 10.2147/NDT.S87703. eCollection 2015.
Childhood adversity has frequently been related to a wide range of psychosomatic complaints in adulthood. The present study examined the relationship between different forms of childhood adversity and laboratory measures of pain. Heat pain tolerance and perceived heat pain intensity were measured in a community-based sample of 62 women (aged 20-64 years). Participants completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), which assesses five forms of childhood adversity: physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, physical neglect, and emotional neglect. Somatic symptoms, depressive symptoms, and pain catastrophizing were assessed as potential mediators. Bivariate analyses indicated that emotional abuse but no other forms of childhood adversity were significantly related to decreased heat pain tolerance (r=-0.27; P<0.05). Accordingly, multiple regression analyses revealed that only emotional abuse was a significant predictor of heat pain tolerance (β=-0.62; P=0.034) when entering all CTQ subscales simultaneously. Although emotional abuse was also related to somatic symptoms, depressive symptoms, and pain catastrophizing, none of these variables mediated the relationship between childhood adversity and laboratory pain (P>0.1). No significant associations were found between any forms of childhood adversity and heat pain intensity. Our findings indicate that the severity of emotional childhood abuse is associated with decreased pain tolerance, an affective component of pain, but not with heat pain intensity, which has been described as a sensory component of pain.
童年逆境常常与成年后的一系列心身问题相关。本研究考察了不同形式的童年逆境与疼痛实验室指标之间的关系。对一个基于社区的62名女性（年龄在20 - 64岁之间）样本测量了热痛耐受性和感知热痛强度。参与者完成了童年创伤问卷（CTQ），该问卷评估童年逆境的五种形式：身体虐待、性虐待、情感虐待、身体忽视和情感忽视。评估了躯体症状、抑郁症状和疼痛灾难化作为潜在中介变量。双变量分析表明，情感虐待而非其他形式的童年逆境与热痛耐受性降低显著相关（r = -0.27；P < 0.05）。相应地，多元回归分析显示，当同时纳入所有CTQ分量表时，只有情感虐待是热痛耐受性的显著预测因子（β = -0.62；P = 0.034）。尽管情感虐待也与躯体症状、抑郁症状和疼痛灾难化相关，但这些变量均未介导童年逆境与实验室疼痛之间的关系（P > 0.1）。未发现任何形式的童年逆境与热痛强度之间存在显著关联。我们的研究结果表明，童年情感虐待的严重程度与疼痛耐受性降低有关，疼痛耐受性是疼痛的情感成分，但与热痛强度无关，热痛强度被描述为疼痛的感觉成分。
