The Moderating Role of Ethnicity on Depressive and Anxiety Symptoms and Pain Catastrophizing in Hispanic/Latinx and Non-Hispanic/Latinx White Youth with Chronic Pain.

Objectives: Chronic pain (CP) significantly impacts emotional and physical well-being and overall quality of life across diverse populations in the United States (U.S.). Notably, underrepresented minoritized (URM) groups, such as Hispanic/Latinx youth, may experience disproportionate effects due to health disparities and lack of access to quality healthcare. However, this remains understudied. This study aims to examine the association between CP and its related psychosocial factors- depressive and anxiety symptoms, and pain catastrophizing- in Hispanic/Latinx youth, as compared to Non-Hispanic White (NHW) youth.

Methods: The current study sample included 58 self-identifying Hispanic/Latinx and 58 NHW youth seeking CP treatment at a large northeastern tertiary pain clinic, ages 12-18 y.o., M=15.49, SD=1.71), of which 88% identified as biologically female. Participant samples for each group were age-and-sex matched.

Results: Significant associations were found between anxiety and depressive symptoms and pain catastrophizing for youth in both groups. Ethnicity significantly moderated the associations between pain catastrophizing and depressive symptoms and between anxiety and depressive symptoms, with NHW youth with pain exhibiting stronger relations between these constructs when compared to Hispanic/Latinx youth with pain.

Discussion: Our results suggested that for NHW youth with CP, greater tendencies toward catastrophizing and experiences of anxiety may more strongly contribute to depressive symptoms, when compared to their Hispanic/Latinx youth counterparts. Further investigation of pain-coping mechanisms among Hispanic/Latinx youth and other youth from historically marginalized populations (e.g., racial/ethnic minoritized groups) will help advance clinical understanding of sociocultural variability in links between pain-related psychosocial outcomes in the CP experience.