Highlights
- •The study included individuals with chronic low back pain.
- •Perceived injustice, attentional bias (AB), and activity appraisals were assessed.
- •Perceived injustice was positively associated with attention bias to pain.
- •Perceived injustice and AB were positively associated with pain and difficulty appraisals.
- •AB did not mediate the relationship between perceived injustice and task appraisals.
Abstract
The current study examined the relationship between perceived injustice and attentional
bias (AB) toward pain among individuals with chronic low back pain asked to perform
and appraise the pain and difficulty of a standardized set of common physical activities.
A pictorial dot-probe task assessed AB toward pain stimuli (ie, pain faces cueing
pain), after which participants performed the physical tasks. Participants also rated
face stimuli in terms of pain, sadness, and anger expression. As hypothesized, perceived
injustice was positively associated with AB toward pain stimuli; additionally, perceived
injustice and AB were positively associated with appraisals of pain and difficulty.
Counter to expectations, AB did not mediate the relationship between perceived injustice
and task appraisals, suggesting that AB is insufficient to explain this relationship.
Exploratory analyses indicated that participants with higher levels of perceived injustice
rated stimulus faces as sadder and angrier; no such differences emerged for pain ratings.
To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the association between perceived
injustice and AB toward pain, as well as perceived injustice and in vivo appraisals
of common physical activity. Results extend existing literature and suggest that attentional
and potential interpretive bias should be considered in future research.
Perspective
This article identifies significant associations between perceived injustice, biased
attention to pain, and appraisals of common physical activities among individuals
with chronic low back pain. These findings suggest targets for intervention as well
as directions for future research regarding individuals with high perceptions of injustice
related to pain.
Key words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: August 21, 2016
Accepted:
August 10,
2016
Received in revised form:
July 18,
2016
Received:
March 3,
2016
Footnotes
The authors acknowledge the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) Early Career Grants Program for their support of this study.
The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
Identification
Copyright
© 2016 by the American Pain Society
