Psychological findings in chronic anal pain.

The psychological characteristics of 21 patients suffering from chronic anal pain were studied. They underwent a clinical interview and completed the Eysenck personality questionnaire, the Zung self-rating depression scale and an analogue scale for the assessment of perceived pain. Data derived from the self-rating scales were compared with those obtained from a matched control group afflicted with fissure-in-ano. The pain patients reported higher scores for neuroticism, psychoticism, depression and perceived pain than the controls. Fifty percent of the experimental group had suffered prior to the onset of pain from depressive disturbances, and 11 subjects reported at the clinical interview somatic symptoms which usually accompany depression. These results support the hypothesis that the pain symptom in some patients with chronic anal pain could represent the manifestation of an underlying depressive disturbance.