Patients with Chronic Pain: Are Mindfulness Traits Protective Against Distress, Anxiety and Depression?

OBJECTIVE

To investigate mindfulness traits/attitudes as protective factors against chronic pain related distress, depression and anxiety.

METHOD

Fifty patients (25 with chronic non-oncologic pain-NOP; 25 with chronic oncologic pain-COP) were administered with the following scales: Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), Pain Disability Index (PDI), Italian Questionnaire for Pain (QUID), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), State and Trait Anxiety Scale (STAY-y1 module), Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Psychological General Well Being Index (PGWBI), Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS).

RESULTS

MAAS value ≥ 4.38 was adopted as cut-off to compare '' (HM) vs. '' (NM) attitudes. Twenty-six patients (52%) scored ≥4.38, with no different distribution between NOP and COP. HM patients scored significantly lower than NM patients on PDI domain (4.5±3.2 vs. 6.4±2.8; p<.037), and on PSS (17.8±2.6 vs. 20.9±2.5; p<.0001), STAY-y1 (9.4±1.8 vs. 10.3±2.1; p<.0001), BDI-II (7.8±5.0 vs. 17.6±8.6; p<.0001) total scores. HM scored significantly higher than NM patients in all PGWBI domains. A multiple regression analysis was carried out to analyze the predictor variables of PGWB. The most complete model considered the variables MAAS, STAIy and VAS (F=42.21; p<.0001), that accounted for the 71.6% of PGWB variance. MAAS score was the only variable positively predicting for PGWB; STAIy and VAS scores predicted negatively.

CONCLUSIONS

Chronic pain patients with high levels of mindfulness attitudes experienced less distress, anxiety, depressive symptoms, and more physical and general wellbeing than patients with low levels of mindfulness attitudes.