ArticleEuropean journal of pain (London, England)2019
What do you expect? Catastrophizing mediates associations between expectancies and pain-facilitatory processes.
Article in European journal of pain (London, England), 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 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
15 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 33 citations in OpenAlex.
- The effect of EMS, IFC, and TENS on patient-reported outcome measures for chronic low back pain: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2024Pooled it
- The Association Between Body Mass Index and Acute Postoperative Pain in Bariatric Surgery Patients: A Prospective Cohort Study.Pain and therapy · 2026Article
- A Longitudinal Study of Coping Strategies and Differences by Sex in Patients with Chronic Low Back Pain.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Article
- Interoceptive Awareness Mediates Effects of Sleep Disturbance on Pain Outcomes in Chronic Pain Patients.Integrative medicine reports · 2024Article
- The mediating effect of social functioning on the relationship between catastrophizing and pain among patients with chronic low back pain.Pain medicine (Malden, Mass.) · 2023Observational
- Objective Measurement of Subjective Pain Perception with Autonomic Body Reactions in Healthy Subjects and Chronic Back Pain Patients: An Experimental Heat Pain Study.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Positive, but not negative, treatment outcome expectancies mediate the relation between depressive symptoms and treatment-related pain reduction.Journal of behavioral medicine · 2023Article
- The Influence of Expectancies on Pain and Function Over Time After Total Knee Arthroplasty.Pain medicine (Malden, Mass.) · 2022Article
- Cross-Sectional Comparative Study on Central Sensitization-Psychosocial Associated Comorbidities and Psychological Characteristics in Breast Cancer Survivors with Nociceptive Pain and Pain with Neuropathic Features and without Pain.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Investigating the effects of mobilization with movement and exercise on pain modulation processes in shoulder pain - a single cohort pilot study with short-term follow up.The Journal of manual & manipulative therapy · 2022Article
- Comparison of characteristics between neuropathic pain and non-neuropathic pain in patients with diabetic carpal tunnel syndrome: A cross-sectional study.Frontiers in surgery · 2022Article
- Temporal Summation in Fibromyalgia Patients: Comparing Phasic and Tonic Paradigms.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Temporal Association of Pain Catastrophizing and Pain Severity Across the Perioperative Period: A Cross-Lagged Panel Analysis After Total Knee Arthroplasty.Pain medicine (Malden, Mass.) · 2021Observational
- Direct and mediated effects of treatment context on low back pain outcome: a prospective cohort study.BMJ open · 2021Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundPain expectancies are associated with altered pain sensitivity in individuals with chronic pain. However, little is known about the processes by which pain expectancies impact pain processing. This study assessed the association between pain expectancies and temporal summation (TS) of pain, and examined whether pain catastrophizing mediated this association.
methodsIn this cross-sectional study, participants (437 chronic low back pain [CLBP] patients, 115 controls) completed self-report measures of pain intensity, pain expectancies and pain catastrophizing before undergoing psychophysical pain-testing procedures designed to assess mechanical TS of mechanical pain. Pearson's correlations examined the associations between study variables in CLBP patients and controls. Bootstrapping mediation analyses assessed the mediating role of pain catastrophizing on the association between pain expectancies and TS of pain.
resultsTemporal summation of pain was significantly associated with pain expectancies (r = 0.113) and pain catastrophizing (r = 0.171) in CLBP patients. Results of mediation analyses revealed that pain catastrophizing mediated the relationship between pain expectancies and TS of pain in CLBP patients (ab = 0.309, 95% CI = 0.1222-0.5604), but not in healthy controls (ab = -0.125, 95% CI = -0.5864 to 0.0244).
conclusionsThe findings from this study suggest that compared to controls, CLBP patients show increased sensitivity to mechanical pain procedures and enhanced pain-facilitatory processing, proving further evidence for changes in central nervous system pain processing in CLBP patients. Our results also suggest that pain catastrophizing may be the mechanism by which pain expectancies are associated with TS of pain in CLBP patients. SIGNIFICANCE: Individuals with chronic low back pain who expect higher levels of pain and catastrophize about their pain are more likely to experience altered pain sensitivity. Our results point to catastrophizing as a mechanism of action through which psychological factors may operate and lead to the development and maintenance of chronic low back pain.
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.