Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Role Of Fear Of Pain In Headache, Anna Katherine Black

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recurrent headache sufferers are often fearful of pain, which disrupts cognitive thought processes, interferes with daily activities, and may maintain headache-related disability through avoidance and associated negative reinforcement. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to 1) examine differences in fear of pain between headache sufferers and non-headache controls; 2) examine differences in fear of pain across primary headache diagnostic groups; 3) assess the extent to which fear of pain predicts headache variables (e.g., severity, frequency, disability); and 4) determine whether fear of pain mediates the relationship between pain severity and headache-related disability. The sample consisted of 908 young adults …