Psychological Distress and Adaptation to Chronic Pain: Symptomatology in Dysfunctional, Interpersonally Distressed, and Adaptive Copers

Abstract

Objectives: To investigate psychological symptomatology and distress in sub groups of chronic pain patients with different adaptation styles.

Methods: Subjects were 660 patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain who were tested by the combined use of the two large and much used psychological inventories-the Multidimensional Pain Inventory and the Symptom Check list-90-Revised.

Results: The results showed significant differences between the three adaptation profiles, dysfunctional, inter personally distressed, and adaptive copers. Adaptive copers were equally and less distressed than a sample from a normal population.

Conclusion: This study calls attention to the risk of blind faith of the ‘objective ness’ of psychometric scales and of the use of them as the sole basis for designing treatments. More attention seems to be needed to get more information about the ‘healthy’ group of adaptive copers by extended clinical judgment.

KEYWORDS:

• Chronic pain
• psychological distress
• adaptation profiles
• the Multidimensional Pain Inventory
• Symptom Check list-90-Revised