Psychology Commons^™

A Review Of The Effects Of Mindfulness Meditation On Chronic Pain In Older Adults, Gregory H. Jacks

Theses and Dissertations

Pain is a biopsychosocial phenomenon, which draws from physiological responses as well as cultural and social context and mental states. Pain is most frequently treated through surgical and pharmacological interventions, which can be costly and time-consuming, especially when treating chronic pain. Older adults suffer from chronic pain at a higher rate than the rest of the population, and more accessible interventions are desperately needed to help manage the experience of chronic pain. Mindfulness meditation is increasingly being utilized for management of pain due to evidence of its effectiveness, cheaper cost, and ability to be practiced outside of medical facilities. Prior …

A Systematic Review On The Relationship Between Attachment Styles And Chronic Pain, Samantha M. Cohen

Theses and Dissertations

Chronic pain (CP), a leading cause of disability, is associated with addiction, physical and psychosocial impairment and tremendous financial burden. Childhood experiences contribute to the genesis of different attachment styles. Attachment theory offers a useful framework for the conceptualization of CP, with different attachment styles impacting the experience and clinical manifestations of CP. This systematic review aims to evaluate the relationship between attachment styles and CP, to investigate which attachment styles pose the greatest risk for CP, to examine how CP is expressed in the context of different attachment styles, and to gain insight regarding the treatment approach to CP. …

Group Psychotherapy For Pain: A Meta-Analysis, Cameron Todd Alldredge

Theses and Dissertations

Chronic pain is common and frequently interferes with people’s regular functioning and reduces quality of life. Though pharmacological approaches are used most frequently to treat pain-related issues, the side effects of these medications often lead to other problems. Group therapy has been used and studied for decades in treating pain though it’s general efficacy for addressing pain is not clear. Objectives: to determine group therapy’s efficacy for patients with pain-related issues and whether the effects are moderated by study, patient, leader, or group characteristics. Method: potential articles were selected from searches completed in major databases based on a set of …

Understanding Language Use Patterns Of People With Chronic Pain: A Novel Assessment Approach, Jodie Maccarrone

Theses and Dissertations

It is estimated that 35% of Americans or 116 million people report experiencing chronic pain daily (Nahin, 2015). Due to the unique and individualized nature of chronic pain, successful treatment of this condition is difficult to achieve. The heterogeneity and complexity in presentation may help explain why, as all methods of treatment have fallen short of providing consistent and reliable outcomes (Finnerup et al., 2015; Lumley & Schubiner, 2019), resulting in unsuccessful treatment approaches that can lead to compounding negative consequences such as hyperalgesia (Garland et al., 2013) and even death (Scholl, Seth, Kariisa, Wilson, & Baldwin, 2019). As such, …

Impacts Of Parental Pain Dismissal In Emerging Adulthood, Sophia Zwick

Theses and Dissertations

The experience of chronic pain and pain dismissal is common in children/adolescents. Parental pain dismissal is of particular interest in this study due to the complexity of the family unit. Substantial research has been conducted to determine the negative impacts on emerging adults (e.g., drug misuse and rates of anxiety and depression). However, no research has explored the lasting impacts that these experiences facilitate into emerging adulthood. The purpose of the current study was to better understand the long-term impacts of parental pain dismissal into emerging adulthood. Participants in the current study were emerging adults that completed an online survey …

Association Between Lifetime Adverse Events, Emotion Dysregulation, Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms, Acculturation, And Chronic Pain: A Moderated Mediation Model, Miriam El-Haj

Theses and Dissertations

The association between traumatic experiences and chronic pain is well established. Lesser is known about how acculturation might affect this relation, specifically with Hispanics. In the present study, self-report measures on traumatic experiences, posttraumatic stress symptoms, emotion dysregulation, chronic pain, and acculturation were administered to 140 participants (71.4% females) aged 18–65 years old (M = 35.06, SD = 11.55), to determine whether acculturation moderates the relation between adverse lifetime experiences and chronic pain as mediated by posttraumatic stress symptoms and emotion dysregulation.

Those who were highly acculturated to the U.S. Anglo culture were higher on chronic pain than those who …

Chronic Pain Causal Attributions In An Interdisciplinary Primary Care Clinic: Patient-Provider And Provider-Provider Discrepancies, Bryan Jensen

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the influence of pain causal attributions on patient pain-related functioning, treatment engagement, and clinical outcomes. Additionally, the impact of discordant pain causal attributions between patients and their providers as well as between interdisciplinary providers was examined. Patients rated their pain functioning and causal pain attributions during a regular clinic visit. Following the patient’s visit both the behavioral medicine provider and internal medicine resident provided ratings of similar pain-related functioning domains and causal attributions. Follow-up data were collected from the electronic medical record three months following that clinic visit. Overall, results revealed …

The Role Of Pain-Related Catastrophizing In Outcomes And Recovery From Minimally Invasive And Surgical Procedures For Treating Temporomandibular Disorders, Aaron Martin

Theses and Dissertations

The current study examined the ability of pain-related catastrophizing to predict outcomes following non-surgical and surgical intervention for temporomandibular disorders (TMDs). The interpersonal context of pain-related catastrophizing, referred to as the communal coping model, was also examined to determine if patient perceptions of punishing and solicitous responses from significant others would moderate or mediate relations between pain catastrophizing and outcomes. The role of pain duration as a moderator of the relation between pain-related catastrophizing and perceived significant other responding was also examined. A total of 94 patients were identified for which 65 had follow-up outcomes that could be examined. Patient …