Department of Psychology, Wofford College, Spartanburg, South Carolina.
Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington.
Eur J Pain. 2019 Aug;23(7):1358-1367. doi: 10.1002/ejp.1405. Epub 2019 May 9.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
本研究旨在：(a) 评估对担忧和幸福感的实验操作对疼痛感知以及对疼痛的担忧、疼痛灾难化的测量的影响；(b) 确定对疼痛的情境特异性担忧和疼痛灾难化的变化是否与急性疼痛的变化相关。
该研究纳入了 120 名健康、无痛的志愿者。参与者接受了四种不同程度的有害刺激，并报告了在刺激过程中经历的疼痛强度、对疼痛的担忧和疼痛灾难化。然后，他们被随机分配到快乐或担忧条件下，在那里他们接受了情绪诱导程序。然后重复了有害暴露程序和疼痛、与疼痛相关的担忧和疼痛灾难化的测量。
担忧组的参与者报告疼痛强度显著增加，而快乐组的参与者报告疼痛强度显著降低。此外，担忧组的参与者报告对疼痛的担忧和疼痛灾难化显著增加，而快乐组则表现出相反的效果。最后，发现对疼痛的担忧和疼痛灾难化的变化介导了情绪诱导程序对疼痛强度的影响。
研究结果表明，疼痛强度、对疼痛的担忧和疼痛灾难化对情绪变化都很敏感。研究结果具有潜在的临床意义。
本研究表明，疼痛相关的担忧、疼痛灾难化和情绪的诱导变化对急性疼痛的体验有直接影响。更广泛地说，这三个变量的重叠为通过评估和针对焦虑和灾难化共有的认知和行为，为疼痛状况的研究和治疗提供了新的视角。
