ArticlePain research & management
Catastrophizers with chronic pain display more pain behaviour when in a relationship with a low catastrophizing spouse.
Article in Pain research & management. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The Association Between Partner Reactions to Chronic Pain and Pain-Related Outcomes: A Systematic Review.European journal of pain (London, England) · 2026Pooled it
- Interpersonal Responses and Pain Management Within the US Military.Journal of occupational rehabilitation · 2016Trial
- Trial
- Pain-related support seeking? Situating the response to pain within the social context using a sample of women experiencing menstrual pain.Journal of behavioral medicine · 2025Article
- When Pain Catastrophizing Is Not Catastrophizing: Identifying Normative From Exaggerated Responses Relative to Referent Pain Intensity.Pain research & management · 2025Observational
- "It's all my fault": a qualitative study of how heterosexual couples experience living with vulvodynia.Acta obstetricia et gynecologica Scandinavica · 2023Article
- An Assessment of the Longitudinal Construct Validity of the Pain Behavioral Scale (PaBS) in a Saudi Population with Chronic Low Back Pain: A Preliminary Study.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Measurement precision of the Pain Catastrophizing Scale and its short forms in chronic low back pain.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- How to objectively assess and observe maladaptive pain behaviors in clinical rehabilitation: a systematic search and review.Archives of physiotherapy · 2021Review
- Cross-cultural adaptation, reliability and validity of the Fremantle Knee Awareness Questionnaire in Italian subjects with painful knee osteoarthritis.Health and quality of life outcomes · 2021Article
- The moderating role of pain catastrophizing on the relationship between partner support and pain intensity: a daily diary study in patients with knee osteoarthritis.Journal of behavioral medicine · 2020Article
- Pain Catastrophizing Thoughts Explain the Link Between Perceived Caregiver Responses and Pain Behaviors of Patients With Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Article
- Empathic Accuracy in Chronic Pain: Exploring Patient and Informal Caregiver Differences and Their Personality Correlates.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2019Article
- Experiences of Urban African Americans with Cancer Pain.Pain management nursing : official journal of the American Society of Pain Management Nurses · 2018Article
- Healthy and maladaptive dependency and its relationship to pain management and perceptions in physical therapy patients.Journal of clinical psychology in medical settings · 2013Article
- The demographics of pain catastrophizing in a primary care sample.Innovations in clinical neuroscience · 2013Article
- Psychological resilience, pain catastrophizing, and positive emotions: perspectives on comprehensive modeling of individual pain adaptation.Current pain and headache reports · 2013Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The present study examined the relationship between couple concordance of catastrophizing and adverse pain outcomes. Possible mechanisms underlying the relationship between couple concordance of catastrophizing and pain outcomes were also explored. Fifty-eight couples were recruited for the study. The chronic pain patients were filmed while lifting a series of weighted canisters. The spouse was later invited to view the video and answer questions about the pain experience of their partner. Median splits on Pain Catastrophizing Scale scores were used to create four 'catastrophizing concordance' groups: low catastrophizing patient-low catastrophizing spouse; low catastrophizing patient-high catastrophizing spouse; high catastrophizing patient-low catastrophizing spouse; and high catastrophizing patient-high catastrophizing spouse. Analyses revealed that high catastrophizing pain patients who were in a relationship with a low catastrophizing spouse displayed more pain behaviours than patients in all other groups. These findings suggest that high catastrophizing chronic pain patients may need to increase the 'volume' of pain communication to compensate for low catastrophizing spouses' tendency to underestimate the severity of their pain experience. Patients' perceived solicitousness and punitive response from the spouse could not explain the group differences in pain behaviour. Theoretical and clinical implications of the findings are discussed.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.