Explaining the profile of chronic pain based on cognitive, emotional, and neuropsychological indicators

Background: Pain is a phenomenon every person experience during life, and its prevalence in societies is reportedly 13-47%. It is a musculoskeletal debilitating pain. However, psychological approaches focus on the two categories of pain-injury factors and pain-coping skills, which are directed at creating a disaster and increasing the intensity of pain. In this study, the aim was to investigate the correlation between psychological approaches and chronic pain in patients to evaluate the frequency of each of them in the Iranian population.

Methods: Two hundred patients suffering from chronic muscular and skeletal pains were selected by the available sampling method and examined based on research questionnaires. Research tools included the Stroop color-word test, Wisconsin cards, anxiety sensitivity, ambiguous scenarios, Googlen behavioral disorders questionnaire, pain acceptance questionnaire, and uncertainty intolerance scale. A partial least squares (PLS) approach was used to analyze the data due to the exploratory nature of the model, the small sample size, and the non-normal distribution of variables. Analyzes were performed using SPSS.16 and SmartPLS.3.3.2 software.

Results: The path of predicting chronic pain by five indicators was significant in all dimensions. It was found that congruent (P<0.01) and incongruent reactions (P<0.01) and ambiguous scenarios (P<0.01) among cognitive indicators, anxiety sensitivity (P<0.01), and completion of classes (P<0.01) among the neurological indicators,  intolerance of uncertainty (P 0.01) among the emotional indicators and unstable behavior tendencies (P<0.01) and impulsive behavior tendencies (P<0.01) among the behavioral indicators were significant predictors for chronic pain.

Conclusion: Finally, we found that emotional factors are more closely correlated to chronic pain than cognitive factors. Also, it can be said that the structure of anxiety sensitivity has a significant association with chronic pain disorders, and clinicians should pay attention to this emotional structure and its multifaceted effects in working with chronic pain patients.

Keywords: chronic pain, cognitive indicators, emotional indicators, neuropsychological indicators