ArticlePloS one2021
Different semantic and affective meaning of the words associated to physical and social pain in cancer patients on early palliative/supportive care and in healthy, pain-free individuals.
Article in PloS one, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 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
9 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 12 citations in OpenAlex.
- Biological research on mental pain, social pain and other pains not primarily felt in the body: methodological systematic review.The British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science · 2025Pooled it
- Optimized communication during risk disclosure to reduce nocebo headache after lumbar puncture-a study protocol for a randomized controlled clinical trial.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Editorial: The brain in pain: a multidimensional approach.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Are all negative words alike? Behavioral differences in processing negative words associated and not associated with physical and social pain.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Stigma of Palliative Care among Patients with Advanced Cancer and Their Caregivers on Early Palliative Care.Cancers · 2023Article
- Words hurt: common and distinct neural substrates underlying nociceptive and semantic pain.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2023Article
- Electrophysiological correlates of semantic pain processing in the affective priming.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Social relationships and relational pain in brain tumor patients and their partners.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Gratitude among advanced cancer patients and their caregivers: The role of early palliative care.Frontiers in oncology · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
18 authors at 5 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Early palliative/supportive care (ePSC) is a medical intervention focused on patient's needs, that integrates standard oncological treatment, shortly after a diagnosis of advanced/metastatic cancer. ePSC improves the appropriate management of cancer pain. Understanding the semantic and emotional impact of the words used by patients to describe their pain may further improve its assessment in the ePSC setting. Psycholinguistics assumes that the semantic and affective properties of words affect the ease by which they are processed and comprehended. Therefore, in this cross-sectional survey study we collected normative data about the semantic and affective properties of words associated to physical and social pain, in order to investigate how patients with cancer pain on ePSC process them compared to healthy, pain-free individuals. One hundred ninety patients and 124 matched controls rated the Familiarity, Valence, Arousal, Pain-relatedness, Intensity, and Unpleasantness of 94 words expressing physical and social pain. Descriptive and inferential statistics were performed on ratings in order to unveil patients' semantic and affective representation of pain and compare it with those from controls. Possible effects of variables associated to the illness experience were also tested. Both groups perceived the words conveying social pain as more negative and pain-related than those expressing physical pain, confirming previous evidence of social pain described as worse than physical pain. Patients rated pain words as less negative, less pain-related, and conveying a lower intense and unpleasant pain than controls, suggesting either an adaptation to the pain experience or the role played by ePSC in improving patients' ability to cope with it. This exploratory study suggests that a chronic pain experience as the one experienced by cancer patients on ePSC affects the semantic and affective representation of pain words.
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.