Evaluating the relationship between personality traits, coping strategies and paincatastrophizing in patients with chronic pain

The study aimed at investigating the relationship between personality traits, coping strategies and pain catastrophizing in patients with chronicpain. The study adopted a descriptive-correlational approach as its methodology. The population of the study consisted of patients with chronicpain who referred to a pain clinic centerof Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences among whom 100 personswere randomly selected. Thedata gathering tools included NEO Personality Inventory with 60 questions, Rosenstiel and Keefe’s 42-item questionnaire on coping strategiesas well as a Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS) with 13 questions developed by Sullivan, Bishop and Pivik the reliabilitiesof which wereestimatedthrough Cronbach s alpha which were equal to 0/79,0/86 and 0/66, respectively. The Pearson correlation coefficient and regression analysiswere used for data analysis.The results showed that there was a relationship between features such as extraversion, agreeableness,conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness and pain catastrophizing in patients with chronic pain. There were also some relations betweencognitive and behavioral coping strategies and pain catastrophizingin such patients (patients with chronic pain). The share of each of thesecomponents of personality traits and coping strategies on predicting the pain catastrophizing in patients with chronic pain was different. Andthe variable of extraversion (98%) and behavioral strategies (39%) were the highest in predicting the pain catastrophizing in patients with chronicpain.

کلیدواژه ها:

personality traits ، coping strategies ، pain catastrophizing ، patients