Relationship of sexual and physical abuse to pain and psychological assessment variables in chronic pelvic pain patients.

This study examines the incidence of sexual and physical abuse and its relationship to selected pain description and psychological variables in a sample of 36 chronic pelvic pain patients. Abuse was measured on a 6-item reliable scale, and abused and non-abused respondents were compared on 4 categories of variables expected to be related to the effects of abuse (pain description, functional impact of pain, other's response to pain, and psychosocial impact of pain). Results indicated that 19 of 36 patients reported prior abuse.

Site of pain: relationship to measures of pain description, behavior and personality.

Recent research has focused on identification of clinically meaningful subgroupings within the chronic pain population in contrast to prior emphasis on the homogeneity of these patients. The present study investigates site of pain as a potentially useful classification variable for identification of differences among chronic pain patients. In the study 92 patients presenting to a multidisciplinary pain clinic with chronic, benign pain were categorized as to site of pain (head/neck, low back, neither, both).

Spatial distribution of pain: a descriptive characteristic of chronic pain.

Self-report of spatial distribution of pain has been employed to assess anatomic accuracy of pain description. To date, there is little information on behavioral or psychological characteristics of chronic pain patients as a function of spatial distribution of pain sites. In the present study, 92 patients presenting to a multidisciplinary pain clinic with chronic facial, back, or extremity pain enumerated total sites of pain throughout the body.

Stability of self-report measures of improvement in chronic pain: a five-year follow-up.

Seventy patients with chronic low-back pain not due to malignancy returned a questionnaire assessing functional status 5 years following treatment with epidural or subarachnoid nerve blocks. One hundred fifty-one patients had been surveyed 3 years earlier in an initial follow-up. The respondents to the present survey were older and more able to bend and took more medication for pain than non-respondents.

Acupuncture and chronic pain mechanisms: the moderating effects of affect, personality, and stress on response to treatment.

The present study, part of a larger project investigating neurophysiological and psychosocial factors affecting response to acupuncture for chronic pain, compares responders and non-responders to acupuncture on a series of variables assessing personality, affect and stress. Subjects were 40 patients with pain beneath the waist level longer than 6 months duration selected from the roles of the Multidisciplinary Pain Clinic. Responders, defined as 50% or more reduction in pain estimate for greater than two weeks, were found to be less depressed, less passive and overly conventional, have shorter duration of pain, endorse less frequent exposure to stressors, and have less serious non pain-related illnesses.

Acupuncture and chronic pain mechanisms.

Forty patients with chronic pain below the waist level not amenable to conventional medical and/or surgical treatment were randomly assigned to one or two different methods of acupuncture, after studying the underlying pain mechanisms using a Multidisciplinary Pain Clinic approach and the differential spinal block (DSB). One group received acupuncture needling in the classical acupuncture points referred to as meridian loci needling (MLN) and the other group received tender area needling (TAN) with needles inserted in the dermatomal distribution of the painful areas. The responses between the two groups showed no significant difference.