The Role of Resilience in Adjustment and Coping With Chronic Pain.
Newton-John, Toby R. O.; Mason, Christie; Hunter, Mick
Abstract
Purpose: In
clinical practice, it is often noted that some individuals struggle with
chronic pain, while others find effective means to cope. The purpose of
this study was to better understand how resilience fits into coping
with persistent pain problems. Of interest was whether measures of
resilience add to the prediction of adjustment to chronic pain over and
above measures of pain coping as typically used with this patient group.
Method: Individuals (N = 101) with chronic pain who attended an initial
assessment at a pain clinic completed self-report measures of
resilience and coping. Pain related outcome data were also collected.
Results: Bivariate correlations indicated that higher resilience was
associated with significantly less fear avoidance, less pain-related
disability, and lower reported pain intensity. Consistent with
theoretical propositions, bivariate analyses also indicated that more
resilient individuals with chronic pain reported better social support,
and were more likely to be working. Higher resilience was also
positively correlated with greater pain self-efficacy. However, when
hierarchical regression analyses were performed, resilience did not add
significantly to the prediction of depression scores and disability
scores, over and above the contribution made by existing measures of
pain coping.
Conclusion: These findings suggest that, although the
construct of resilience appears to have important relationships with
various dimensions of chronic pain, as currently operationalized, it
does not add significantly to the understanding of chronic-pain
adjustment. Rather than abandoning the resilience construct, our
findings suggest that resilience as applied to the problem of chronic
pain may require a refinement in measurement with this population.
(PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved)
No comments:
Post a Comment