The Relationship Between Pain and Mood: Does Mood Predict Reports of Aches and Pains in a Healthy Sample?

Abstract

The current study examined the predictive relationship between positive affect (PA), negative affect (NA) and reports of general aches and pains. Because little is known about the relationship between emotion arousal levels (e.g. high-arousal and low-arousal) and pain, secondary analyses were done investigating whether emotional arousal, especially within the PA domain, predicts lower pain reports. Eighty-three healthy undergraduates (mean age = 18.29; 44.6% men, 55.4% women; 66.3% Caucasian) participated in a 13-day longitudinal study using an ecological momentary assessment (EMA) design to evaluate participants' mood and pain reports four times a day, each of the 13 days. Mood was evaluated using an adjective checklist of emotion words from both the Profile of Mood States (POMS) and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), and pain was measured using the Cohen-Hoberman Inventory of Physical Symptoms-Short Form (CHIPS-SF). Within the 2-level models, only daily PA was predictive of next-day pain, with increased PA predictive of less pain. However, trait neuroticism drove the other models in predicting higher levels of next-day pain when neuroticism was high. In the 3-level models, PA, NA, and both high- and low-arousal PA were predictive of within-day pain in the directions expected. Neuroticism was a powerful predictor of within-day pain as well. Implications from this study include the importance of multiple components of mood on the pain experience in the moment, but only general PA seems to matter over a longer period of time (days). More research should be done investigating the particular role of high- and low-arousal PA in symptom reports and the pain experience in order to identify mechanisms of action and when these mechanisms are most potent.