Depressed pain patients differ from other depressed groups: examination of cognitive content in a sentence completion task

Adina C. Rusu, Tamar Pincus, Stephen Morley

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Abstract

Depression is a common feature of chronic pain, but there is limited research into the content
and frequency of depressed cognitions in pain patients. A limitation of previous research is the failure
to include non-pain depressed comparison groups. The present study used a sentence completion task
to investigate the content of cognition in four groups of participants: with pain and concurrent
depression, pain without depression, depression without pain, and with neither pain nor depression.
One hundred and seventy two participants generated sentences to a set of predefined stems. Complete
responses were coded by affective valence (negative, positive and neutral) and health-related content.
As predicted, participants with depression (with and without pain) produced more negative responses
than non-depressed participants (with and without pain); participants with pain (depressed and nondepressed)
produced more health responses than those without pain (depressed and controls);
participants with depression and pain produced more negative health responses than any other group.
The strengths of the current study are in the inclusion of the depressed non-pain group, the use of a
comprehensive coding scheme applied by two independent raters, and the presence of depression
validated through a diagnostic interview. In contrast to depressed groups without pain, participants
with pain and depression exhibit a cognitive bias specific to negative aspect of health. This focus
facilitates understanding of the relationship between depression and pain processing: The implications
for therapeutic interventions are discussed
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1898-1904
Number of pages6
JournalPain
Volume153
Issue number9
Early online date4 Jul 2012
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2012

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