Highlights
- •Patient and spouse beliefs about chronic pain affects their behavior.
- •Spouse uncertainty about the source of patient pain is related to critical/invalidating comments toward the patient.
- •Spouse uncertainty is also related to negative attributions regarding the meaning of patient pain behavior.
Abstract
Patient beliefs and perceptions about the causes and meaning of their chronic pain
are related to their psychosocial functioning. Beliefs and perceptions about chronic
pain held by spouses may also be related to patient functioning. We used a laboratory
procedure to evaluate whether spouse beliefs about and perceptions of chronic pain
were related to spouse negative responses toward patients with chronic low back pain
during a conflictual discussion and to their attributions about patient pain behavior
during a subsequent pain-induction task. Patients (n = 71) and their spouses (n = 71)
participated in a 10-minute discussion followed by the patient undergoing a 10-minute
structured pain behavior task. Findings were that a) spouse perceptions that patient's
pain was a mystery were significantly related to greater patient perceived spouse
critical/invalidating responses toward the patient during the discussion; and b) spouse
perceptions that patient's pain was a mystery were related to internal and negative
attributions spouses made while observing patients display pain behaviors during the
structured pain behavior task. Inasmuch as both spouse critical/invalidating speech
toward patients and negative attributions regarding the cause of patient behavior
are related to poor patient functioning, spouse uncertainty about the source and potential
legitimacy of their partner's pain may play crucial roles in affecting patient well-being.
Perspective
Spouse beliefs about and perceptions of patient chronic pain were related to spouse
behavior toward patients during a discussion and to attributions explaining patient
pain during physical activity. If spouse confusion and doubt about patient pain is
related to negative behavior and attributions, then modifying these perceptions may
be a fundamental intervention target.
Key words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: April 05, 2019
Accepted:
April 2,
2019
Received in revised form:
February 28,
2019
Received:
September 19,
2018
Footnotes
Supported by Grant # R01 NR010777 from the National Institute of Nursing Research/NIH. The authors report no conflicts of interest.
Supplementary data accompanying this article are available online at www.jpain.org and www.sciencedirect.com.
Identification
Copyright
© Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of the American Pain Society
