TY - JOUR
T1 - Pain characteristics and their psychosocial clinical correlates
AU - Kreitler, Shulamith
AU - Ezer, Tamar
AU - Gohar, Hana
AU - Niv, David
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgements. We would like to thank S.A.H. Hoffmeister and S. Dubel for discussion and comments on the manuscript, and I. Baro for help with graphs and typing. This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SFB 31 7), the Bundesministerium fur Forschung und Technologie (BCT 365/1) and the Fond der Chemischen Industrie. L.C.J. is supported by the National Institutes of Health (HD 23275)
PY - 1999
Y1 - 1999
N2 - In view of the larger number and heterogeneity of pain patients, our major goal was to examine focal pain-intrinsic variables that could serve for classifying pain patients. We focused on variables common in pain inventories - pain duration (including acute vs chronic), pain persistence (continuous vs intermittent) and pain attribution (only to physical vs physical + psychological causes) and checked for each separately their demographic features and clinical, emotional, psychaitric, and pain-descriptive correlates. The subjects were 84 pain patients selected randomly from two pain clinics. They were administered questionnaires assessing demographic and clinical features, alexithymia, trait anxiety, and anger (Spielberger's STPI-X), inhibited anger (Kreitler and Kreitler), psychiatric tendencies (Derogatis, BSI), and pain experience (McGill Pain Questionnaire and Meaning Pain Scale). The results were that the variable with most correlates was pain attribution, followed by pain duration. Clinical and emotional features predominated among, the correlates. For each variable the correlates provided a significant prediction (by discriminant analysis). Major conclusions are that of the three examined variables pain attribution is the best candidate for a classification factor and that the quest for a constant classification system should be replaced by examining features differentiating pain patients in specific frameworks or for particular goals.
AB - In view of the larger number and heterogeneity of pain patients, our major goal was to examine focal pain-intrinsic variables that could serve for classifying pain patients. We focused on variables common in pain inventories - pain duration (including acute vs chronic), pain persistence (continuous vs intermittent) and pain attribution (only to physical vs physical + psychological causes) and checked for each separately their demographic features and clinical, emotional, psychaitric, and pain-descriptive correlates. The subjects were 84 pain patients selected randomly from two pain clinics. They were administered questionnaires assessing demographic and clinical features, alexithymia, trait anxiety, and anger (Spielberger's STPI-X), inhibited anger (Kreitler and Kreitler), psychiatric tendencies (Derogatis, BSI), and pain experience (McGill Pain Questionnaire and Meaning Pain Scale). The results were that the variable with most correlates was pain attribution, followed by pain duration. Clinical and emotional features predominated among, the correlates. For each variable the correlates provided a significant prediction (by discriminant analysis). Major conclusions are that of the three examined variables pain attribution is the best candidate for a classification factor and that the quest for a constant classification system should be replaced by examining features differentiating pain patients in specific frameworks or for particular goals.
KW - Acute and chronic pain
KW - Attribution
KW - Pain classification
KW - Pain duration
KW - Pain persistence
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=2442751864&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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AN - SCOPUS:2442751864
SN - 0169-1112
VL - 11
SP - 313
EP - 327
JO - Pain Clinic
JF - Pain Clinic
IS - 4
ER -