chronic pain chronic pain syndrome
Conditions
Interventions
None listed
Sponsors
Meander Medisch Centrum
Eligibility
Age
18 Years to 99 Years
Inclusion criteria
Inclusion criteria: Inclusion criteria per group:, Case group: referred for treatment and diagnosed with chronic pain by a rehabilitation/pain specialist. Chronic pain is diagnosed when complaints are lasting for at least three months, persisting beyond the normal tissue healing time and in the absence of an obvious underlying biological cause. Control group: referred for treatment and diagnosed by the rehabilitation/pain specialist with a painful acute injury or a painful condition that can be somatically explained. Inclusion criteria for both groups: age between 18 and 65 years and ability to speak Dutch.
Exclusion criteria
Exclusion criteria: The exclusion criteria for both groups are: younger than 18 years or older than 65 years, inability to speak Dutch, diagnosed mental retardation, substantial cognitive impairments, current major psychiatric disorders and substance abuse (other than pain medication). It is important to note that mild and moderate anxiety and/or depressive symptoms do not result in exclusion.
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame |
|---|---|
| The main study parameter is the mentalizing ability of the participants. Mentalizing is the ability to understand the self and others in terms of intentional mental states (e.g. feelings, wishes, desires, and values; Luyten & Fonagy, 2014). Mentalization includes both emotional self-awareness as the awareness for emotional signals in others. It has a cognitive component, the Theory of Mind (ToM); being able to process, reflect on and express one's own and others' intentions and emotional signals. Next, mentalization consists of an emotional component; e.g. being able to experience empathy. The mentalizing ability will be measured using the FHAT, the LEAS-SF and the RFQ. The Frith-Happe-Animations task (FHAT; Abell, Happe, & Frith, 2000) The FHAT is a performance-based task measuring theory of mind (ToM). It comprises animated video-clips of 34 to 45 seconds. In these clips two triangles exhibit movement patterns of living beings. Individuals with well-functioning ToM will identify these objects as intentional. Therefore, the FHAT shows a person's ability to recognize ToM in interpersonal situations, while excluding most of the potentially confounding factors present in social settings (Abell et al., 2000; Zunhammer et al., 2015). The FHAT has a ToM-condition and a Goal-Directed(GD)-condition. The ToM-condition comprises of four video-clips, in which two triangles display interaction suggesting behavior described as ''Surprising'', ''Coaxing'', ''Mocking'', and ''Seducing''. These clips require ToM for correct interpretation. As a control, the GD-condition is included, in which the triangles display behaviors which do not require higher order mentalizing abilities to interpret correctly. These behaviors are ''Fighting'', ''Following'', ''Chasing'', and ''Dancing''. Participants are asked to describe what they have seen after each video-clip. The responses will be scored on an Intentionality and an Appropriateness scale. The 5-point Intention | — |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame |
|---|---|
| The secondary study parameters are childhood adversities, attachment style and the quality of the patient-doctor relationship. Childhood adversities are defined as maltreatment before the age of seventeen. This maltreatment can consist of physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, physical neglect, and emotional neglect (Thombs, Bernstein, Lobbestael, & Arntz, 2009). The occurrence and extent of childhood adversities are measured by the CTQ-SF. Last, the experienced quality of the patient-doctor relationship is assessed by the PDRQ-9 (Van der Feltz-Cornelis, Van Oppen, Van Marwijk, De Beurs, & Van Dyck, 2004). Childhood trauma questionnaire - Short Form (CTQ-SF; Bernstein et al., 2003) The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire - Short Form (CTQ-SF) is a 28-item retrospective self-report questionnaire designed to assess five dimensions of childhood maltreatment: (1) Physical Abuse, (2) Emotional Abuse, (3) Sexual Abuse, (4) Physical Neglect, and (5) Emotional Neglect. Items are scored on a 5-point Likert-scale and are structured to reflect the frequency of maltreatment experiences (never true, rarely true, sometimes true, often true, very often true). The psychometric properties of the Dutch CTQ-SF were found to be satisfactory: internal consistencies were Cronbach's alpha .91 for Physical Abuse, .89 for Emotional Abuse, .95 for Sexual Abuse, .63 for Physical Neglect, and .91 for Emotional Neglect. In addition, scores on the five CTQ-SF scales among Dutch respondents showed good convergent validity with responses on a semi-structured interview for childhood trauma (Thombs et al., 2009). The other secondary parameter is attachment style. Attachment styles can be defined as internal working models with a specific set of mental representations about the self in interaction with others that is developed in the relationship with primary caregivers (Bowlby, 1969). Attachment styles are relatively stable over time. In terms of their affective-motivati | — |
Countries
Netherlands
Outcome results
None listed