Well-being : the foundations of hedonic psychology

▪ Abstract We review empirical and conceptual developments over the past four years (1992–1995) on attitudes and persuasion. A voluminous amount of material was produced concerning attitude structure, attitude change, and the consequences of holding attitudes. In the structure area, particular attention is paid to work on attitude accessiblity, ambivalence, and the affective versus cognitive bases of attitudes. In persuasion, our review examines research that has focused on high effort cognitive processes (central route), low effort processes (peripheral route), and the multiple roles by which variables can have an impact on attitudes. Special emphasis is given to work on cognitive dissonance and other biases in message processing, and on the multiple processes by which mood influences evaluations. Work on the consequences of attitudes focuses on the impact of attitudes on behavior and social judgments.

Attitudes and attitude change

https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/90300/j.ejpain.2004.11.001.pdf?sequence=1

Human brain mechanisms of pain perception and regulation in health and disease.

This new edition of Ann Bowling's well-known and highly respected text has been thoroughly revised and updated to reflect key methodological developments in health research. It is a comprehensive, easy to read, guide to the range of methods used to study and evaluate health and health services. It describes the concepts and methods used by the main disciplines involved in health research, including: demography, epidemiology, health economics, psychology and sociology.The research methods described cover the assessment of health needs, morbidity and mortality trends and rates, costing health services, sampling for survey research, cross-sectional and longitudinal survey design, experimental methods and techniques of group assignment, questionnaire design, interviewing techniques, coding and analysis of quantitative data, methods and analysis of qualitative observational studies, and types of unstructured interviewing. With new material on topics such as cluster randomization, utility analyses, patients' preferences, and perception of risk, the text is aimed at students and researchers of health and health services. It has also been designed for health professionals and policy makers who have responsibility for applying research findings in practice, and who need to know how to judge the value of that research.

Research Methods in Health. Investigating health and health services

Interpreting the Clinical Importance of Treatment Outcomes in Chronic Pain Clinical Trials: IMMPACT Recommendations

The localised PET cerebral correlates of the painful experience in the normal human brain have previously been demonstrated. This study examined whether these responses are different in patients with chronic atypical facial pain. The regional cerebral responses to non-painful and painful thermal stimuli in six female patients with atypical facial pain and six matched female controls were studied by taking serial measurements of regional blood flow by PET. Both groups displayed highly significant differences in responses to painful heat compared with non-painful heat in the thalamus, anterior cingulate cortex (area 24), lentiform nucleus, insula, and prefrontal cortex. These structures are closely related to the "medial pain system". The atypical facial pain group had increased blood flow in the anterior cingulate cortex and decreased blood flow in the prefrontal cortex. These findings show the importance of the anterior cingulate cortex and the reciprocal (possibly inhibitory) connections with the prefrontal cortex in the processing of pain in patients with this disorder. A hypothesis is proposed to explain the mechanisms of cognitive and pharmacological manipulation of these pain processes.

https://jnnp.bmj.com/content/jnnp/57/10/1166.full.pdf

Cerebral responses to pain in patients with atypical facial pain measured by positron emission tomography.

Diagnosis of pelvic varicosities in women with chronic pelvic pain

This paper reports a qualitative review of the literature on memory for pain. Most research has focused on the accuracy of memory for pain intensity. There is some evidence that recall is moderately accurate but this conclusion is tentative because of significant methodological problems. There is also some evidence that recall of acute pain is more accurate than recall of chronic pain and we make some suggestions as to why this difference might occur. We conclude that further research on memory for pain should be informed by reference to methodological practices developed in cognitive psychology and embedded within an appropriate theoretical framework.

Memory for pain: a review

The prevalence of self-reported depressive symptoms was investigated in a case-control study of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) attending an out-patient clinic at the Middlesex Hospital. Patients selected their own controls, matched for age and sex. Previous attempts to measure depressive symptoms in RA have suffered from measurement error due to criterion contamination, where psychological symptoms augment depressive scores. A total of 163 patients (77% of the sample) and 115 matched pairs completed the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). The results indicated that RA patients are more depressed and anxious than controls. The prevalence of depression above the cut-point was 15%. This figure is comparable to other reports adjusted for criterion contamination, but is lower than that of other studies which employ 'contaminated' tools. The depression scale of the HADS appeared to be relatively free of criterion contamination. Subject to further reliability testing, the HADS may be a practical screening tool for practitioners to assess patients in need of psychological interventions.

/pdf/prevalence-of-self-reported-depression-in-patients-with-4jfs53i58z.pdf

Prevalence of self-reported depression in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

This paper reports the development and validation of the Pain Beliefs Questionnaire (PBQ). This is a 20-item questionnaire covering beliefs about the cause and treatment of pain. It was administered to 294 subjects, comprising 100 chronic pain patients and 194 controls. An exploratory factor analysis revealed 2 factors accounting for 68.15% of the variance. From the final solution 2 scales were derived: the first called Organic Beliefs and the second Psychological Beliefs scale, comprising 8 and 4 items, respectively. The construct validity of the questionnaire was assessed in 2 ways. First, the responses of chronic pain patients and non-patient controls were compared: a significant difference (F(1,236) = 53.04, P < 0.0001) between these 2 groups emerged such that chronic pain patients were more likely to endorse the Organic Beliefs scale items, whereas non-patients were more likely to endorse the Psychological Beliefs scale items. Secondly, as predicted significant associations were observed between scores on the Organic Beliefs scale and scores on the Chance and Powerful Others scales of the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control (MHLC), and also between the Psychological Beliefs and Internal scales of the MHLC. No relationship, however, emerged between these scales and measures of pain intensity. The implications of these findings for the assessment and management of chronic pain patients, and in the understanding of the development of chronic pain, are discussed.

Shirley Pearce

Papers

Cerebral responses to pain in patients with atypical facial pain measured by positron emission tomography.

Diagnosis of pelvic varicosities in women with chronic pelvic pain

Memory for pain: a review

Prevalence of self-reported depression in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

The Pain Beliefs Questionnaire: an investigation of beliefs in the causes and consequences of pain.