ArticleEuropean journal of pain (London, England)2026
Does Interoceptive Sensibility Mediate the Relationship Between Emotional Distress and Pain Severity? A Cross-Sectional Study in Chronic Pain and Pain-Free Individuals.
Article in European journal of pain (London, England), 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundPain and emotion are strongly related, yet the mechanisms mediating their relationship remain unclear. Interoception, perceiving internal bodily signals, has been implicated in pain-related and emotional processes. Altered interoception was demonstrated in chronic pain (CP) and mental health conditions. This preregistered cross-sectional study examined whether interoceptive sensibility, the self-reported multi-dimensional tendency to monitor bodily sensations, mediated the relationship between pain severity and emotional distress.
methodsAdults with mixed-aetiology CP (n = 203) and pain free controls (PFC; n = 170) recruited from the community, and treatment-seeking patients with chronic orofacial pain (COFP; n = 89) recruited from a clinic completed measures of pain intensity, pain interference, emotional distress (depression, anxiety, anger) and interoceptive sensibility, specifically the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (version 2) and Body Perception Questionnaire.
resultsCompared to PFC, both CP groups reported greater pain intensity, pain interference and emotional distress, together with a differential interoceptive profile reflecting greater noticing and perceiving of their bodily sensations, while being more worried and having less trust in these sensations (p-values < 0.001). These interoceptive dimensions did not correlate with pain intensity, yet correlated differentially between groups with emotional distress and pain interference: not-worrying in CP and COFP (r
conclusionsFindings refuted interoceptive sensibility's link with pain intensity while potentially having an underlying role in linking the functional burden of CP with emotional distress. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: Replicating meta-analytic findings regarding dimensions of interoceptive sensibility in chronic pain differing from pain-free controls. Extending to include both community-based and treatment-seeking people with chronic pain, findings refute preregistered hypothesis for associations between measures of interoceptive sensibility and pain intensity, though indicating according to a preregistered exploratory analysis that worrying about bodily sensations statistically mediated the relationship between pain interference and emotional distress. This suggests interoceptive sensibility as an underlying process in the functional and emotional sequelae of chronic 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.