Steven J Linton

Örebro University | oru · Center for Health and Medical Psychology

Background: Sexual communication is a common target in psychological treatments for vulvodynia, and associations with sexual function and distress, as well as pain intensity, have been demonstrated. However, structured observations of the communication patterns of couples with vulvodynia are lacking, as these are needed to guide treatment efforts....

Background: The Örebro Musculoskeletal Pain Screening Questionnaire (ÖMPSQ) was developed to identify psychological and functioning-related risk factors among individuals with musculoskeletal pain at risk of work disability. This study aimed to examine whether the short version of the ÖMPSQ (ÖMPSQ-SF) can be used for this purpose, using registry-ba...

Background Psychological treatments for common mental disorders are increasingly being delivered remotely via the internet. Evidence suggests that internet-delivered cognitive behavioural therapy (iCBT) is superior to waitlist. However, the benefits are unclear of using this treatment modality as an add-on to treatment as usual (TAU) in regular hea...

Purpose Pain and stress-related ill-health are major causes of long-term disability and sick leave. This study evaluated the effects of a brief psychosocial program, which previously has been tested for an at-risk population of employees. Methods The Effective Communication within the Organization (ECO) program, where supervisors and employees were...

Vulvodynia is common and has an immense impact on affected women and their partners. Psychological factors have been found to contribute to pain maintenance and exacerbation, and treatments addressing psychological factors have yielded positive results. This study employed a replicated single-case experimental design to examine a cognitive behavior...

Objectives Male pelvic pain is a common yet poorly understood condition, strongly influencing quality of life of those affected. Research on psychological and sexual factors is lacking, specifically on younger men in family-forming ages. This study aims to explore psychological and sexual factors related to pelvic pain in younger men (<40 years) th...

The present study investigated the association between symptoms of depression in late adolescence and completion of upper secondary school, taking symptoms of ADHD and conduct disorder, and parental education into account. The study is based on the youth@hordaland-survey, conducted in Western Norway in 2012. A total of 9157 adolescents (aged 16–19...

Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of chronic low back pain (CLBP) on patients' personal and professional lives, and management strategies applied to treat CLBP. Methods: A 60-question survey was developed and respondents from 16 countries with a self-reported physician's diagnosis of CLBP were recruited via an...

Contemporary conceptualizations of pain emphasize its protective function. The meaning assigned to pain drives cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses. When pain is threatening, and a person lacks control over their pain experience, it can become distressing, self-perpetuating, and disabling. Although the pathway to disability is well establ...

This study explores the subjective experiences of dyspareunia among queer women in Sweden. Ten semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with five participants who were all interviewed on two separate occasions. Interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Dyspareunia was described as affecting the participants...

Objective The aim of this study was to investigate physiotherapists’ validating and invalidating communication, before and after brief Cognitive Functional Therapy (CFT) training that included a session on validation skills. Associations between validation/invalidation and the characteristics of the interviews and physiotherapists were also explore...

Chronic pain and sleep problems frequently co-occur. Pain itself disturbs sleep, but other factors may also contribute to sleep problems in pain patients. This cross-sectional study of 473 patients (69.9% female, mean age 47 years) entering tertiary pain management compared normally sleeping pain patients with those having recurring sleep problems...

Objective Current guidelines recommend management of musculoskeletal pain conditions from a biopsychosocial approach, however biopsychosocial interventions delivered by physical therapists vary considerably in effectiveness. It is unknown whether the differences are explained by the intervention itself, the training and/or competency of physical th...

Objective: The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the predictive ability of the Örebro Musculoskeletal Pain Screening Questionnaire (ÖMPSQ) in regard to work productivity (absenteeism and presenteeism) in early adulthood. Methods: A prospective study was performed using data from the Raine Study Generation 2 (Gen2) 22-year follow-u...

Background: To prevent low back pain (LBP) from developing into a prolonged disabling condition, clinical guidelines advocate early stage assessment, risk-screening, and tailored interventions. Occupational health services recommend guideline-oriented biopsychosocial screening and individualized assessment and management. However, it is not known...

Background The aim of this investigation was to examine the longitudinal association between change in insomnia status and the development of anxiety and depression in the general population. Methods A survey was mailed to 5000 randomly selected individuals (aged 18–70 years) in two Swedish counties. After 6 months, a follow-up survey was sent to...

Objectives: We recently developed a transdiagnostic exposure treatment ("the hybrid treatment") for chronic pain patients with concurrent emotional difficulties. This paper investigates the hypothesized treatment processes, specifically: a) if changes on pain-related dysregulation (catastrophizing, fear-avoidance and non-acceptance of pain) and ge...

Background Recent evidence suggests that insomnia negatively influences the occurrence of generalized pain. This study examined whether insomnia is a risk factor for the transition from local pain to generalized pain (i.e., spreading of pain). Methods This longitudinal study, with a follow‐up of 24 months, included 959 participants (mean age: 55.8...

With the objective of increasing the magnitude of treatment effects in behavioral health, there is a steadily growing interest in tailoring assessments and interventions to better match individual needs. This aligns with the central idea that behaviors can be adequately understood by considering the unique characteristics of the individual and cont...

Background: Recent low back pain guidelines recommend a BPS approach to the management of disabling low back pain. However, the most effective way of teaching physiotherapists to implement these approaches remains unknown. The present qualitative study aimed to explore physiotherapists’ conceptions of learning and integrating Cognitive Functional T...

Purpose To evaluate whether a protocol for early intervention addressing the psychosocial risk factors for delayed return to work in workers with soft tissue injuries would achieve better long-term outcomes than usual (stepped) care. Methods The study used a controlled, non-randomised prospective design to compare two case management approaches. Fo...

The Short form of the Örebro Musculoskeletal Pain Screening Questionnaire (ÖMPSQ-short) and the STarT Back Tool (SBT) have been developed to screen for risk factors for future low back pain (LBP) -related disability and work loss respectively. The aim of this study was to investigate the accordance of the two questionnaires and to evaluate the accu...

Background: Because musculoskeletal pain problems are so prevalent, new methods of evaluating and treating patients are needed to increase effectiveness. Subgrouping is a method wherein patients are classified into defined groups on the basis of psychosocial factors with the expectation of more specific and tailored treatments can be prescribed fo...

The original version of this article unfortunately contained a spelling error in one of the co-authors’s names. The family name of the co-author was incorrectly displayed as “James McCauley” instead of “James McAuley. The original article has been corrected.

Adolescents are at risk of sleep deficit, which has serious consequences for their daytime functioning. However, school-based interventions to improve sleep have shown limited success. This might be due to the content of the programs (e.g., not targeting central factors such as daytime stress and technology use) or that changes have not been captur...

Chronic pain patients enter treatment with different problem profiles making careful assessment a necessity for more individualized treatment plans. In this cross-sectional study we assigned 320 patients entering tertiary multidisciplinary pain treatment into four categories based on whether they scored low or high on the activity and the affective...

Purpose (1) to examine the ability of the Örebro Musculoskeletal Pain Screening Questionnaire-short version (ÖMPSQ-SF) to predict time to return to pre-injury work duties (PID) following a work-related soft tissue injury (regardless of body location); and (2) to examine the appropriateness of 50/100 as a suitable cut-off score for case identificati...

In an era characterized by a move towards a “knowledge society”, universities are central in fostering “knowledgeability”, that is the reflexive understanding of knowledge in knowledge societies. The objective of “knowledgeability” can be met through creating a stronger link between education and research. Furthermore, overall student performance,...

The comorbidity between chronic pain and emotional problems has proven difficult to address with current treatment options. This study addresses the efficacy of a transdiagnostic emotion-focused exposure treatment ("hybrid") for chronic pain patients with comorbid emotional problems. Adults (n = 115) with chronic musculoskeletal pain and functional...

Purpose: To understand the process of change at an individual level, this study used a single-case experimental design to evaluate how change in potential mediators related to change in disability over time, during an exposure-based behavioural intervention in four people with chronic low back pain and high pain-related fear. A second aim was to e...

Objectives The term context sensitivity refers to whether a response is in tune with the ever changing demands of the context, while insensitivity is the lack of responding to these cues. To date, we know little about how well patients with pain respond emotionally to changes in the cues provided by the social context, that is, how emotionally cont...

Low back pain affects individuals of all ages and is a leading contributor to disease burden worldwide. Despite advancements in assessment and treatment methods, the management of low back pain remains a challenge for researchers and clinicians alike. One reason for the limited success in identifying effective treatments is the large variation in t...

Low back pain affects individuals of all ages and is a leading contributor to disease burden worldwide. Despite advancements in assessment and treatment methods, the management of low back pain remains a challenge for researchers and clinicians alike. One reason for the limited success in identifying effective treatments is the large variation in t...

Background: Given the high prevalence and negative impact of psychological problems during adolescence, examining transdiagnostic factors that may have scope to positively influence a variety of psychological problems is imperative. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the longitudinal relationship between rumination and psychological...

Technology use has been the focus of much concern for adolescents' sleep health. However, few studies have investigated the bidirectional association between sleep duration and time spent using technology. The aim of this study was to test whether time spent using technology predicted shorter sleep duration, and/or vice versa using cross-lagged ana...

The etiology of chronic pain-related disability is not fully understood, particularly from a clinical perspective. Investigations to date have identified risk factors and elucidated some important processes driving the development of persistent pain problems. Yet this knowledge and its application are not always accessible to practicing physical th...

Background and aims Persistent pain is a pervasive condition that is often associated with a distorted body image. Most research into pain and body image investigated neural or physiological correlates (e.g. phantom limb pain), and much less is known about the psychological experience of body image changes in response to pain such as appearance con...

Background Recurring vulvovaginal pain is common, with evident effects on affected women's lives. Little is known about how affected women cope with painful sexual activities and how coping relates to pain intensity and psychosexual functioning over time. This prospective study explored the impact of avoidance and endurance on sexual function over...

Background: Most people suffering chronic pain are plagued by sleeping difficulties. Cognitive behaviour therapy has produced promising results for insomnia comorbid with chronic pain, but the access to such treatment is often limited. Over the last ten years, interventions aiming to increase cognitive flexibility and physical activity have been a...

BACKGROUND: The Örebro Musculoskeletal Pain Screening Questionnaire (ÖMPSQ) was developed to identify patients at risk of developing work disability due to pain. So far, neither the ÖMPSQ or its short version (ÖMSPQ-short) have been tested in population-based samples. AIM: We examined the associations between several well-known determinants for chr...

Three Cities Study program overview

Background and aims: Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), is a common multifactorial gastrointestinal disorder linked to disturbances in the microbe gut-brain axis. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), in face-to-face format has showed promising results on IBS and its associated psychological symptoms. The present study explored for the first time if CB...

Objectives: To examine how fear-avoidance influences vulvovaginal pain and sexual function over time. Method: At baseline and at 10-month follow-up, self-report measures for sexual- and fear avoidance factors were obtained from 483 female university students with and without self-reported vulvovaginal pain. Results: individuals with pain at both ti...

Background and aims: Validating and invalidating responses play an important role in communication with pain patients, for example regarding emotion regulation and adherence to treatment. However, it is unclear how patients' perceptions of validation and invalidation relate to patient characteristics and treatment outcome. The aim of this study wa...

Background: The Örebro Musculoskeletal Pain Screening Questionnaire (ÖMPSQ) was developed to identify patients at risk of developing work disability due to pain. So far, neither the ÖMPSQ nor its short version (ÖMSPQ-short) have been tested in population-based samples. Aim: We examined the associations between several well-known determinants for...

Background and aims: Context insensitivity has been put forward as a potential mechanism explaining the high co-occurrence of pain and emotional distress. In the pain literature, the concept has only been introduced at a theoretical level and an assessment tool for exploring its impact is lacking. In an interpersonal setting, a core aspect of cont...

Background and aims: Chronic vulvovaginal pain is strikingly common and has a serious impact on women's lives. Nevertheless, there are few longitudinal studies focusing on mechanisms involved in the pain development. One area of interest is how women cope with sexual activities and how this affects their pain. In this study, avoidance and enduranc...

Sleep duration decreases from puberty throughout adolescence. This decrease is normative and is due to both biological and psychosocial changes that push adolescents´ bedtimes later. However, there are indications that a decrease in sleep duration in adolescents have worsened during the last 20 years (Maslowsky et al., 2014). So, biological changes...

Background: Increasing recall of instructions and advice in a pain consultation is important, since it is a prerequisite for adherence to treatment recommendations. However, interference due to pain-related distress may result in poor recall. Whereas there are some indications that recall can be increased by empathic communication that reduces int...

Objectives: There is preliminary evidence for the efficacy of positive psychology interventions for pain management. The current study examined the effects of an internet-based positive psychology self-help program for patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain and compared it with an internet-based cognitive behavioural program. Methods: A rand...

Introduction: Patient-centered, empathetic communication has been recommended as a means for improving the health care of patients suffering pain. However, a problem has been training health care providers since programs may be time-consuming and difficult to learn. Validation, a form of empathetic response that communicates that what a patient exp...

Objective: The aim of this study was to estimate the effect of spinal pain and mental ill-health conditions on work productivity in 22-year-old workers. Methods: A cross-sectional design using data from the Raine Study cohort (n = 867) including self-reported work productivity and self-report of health practitioner diagnosed medical conditions....

The purpose of this study was to assess pain catastrophizing as a mediator in the relationships between pain and recovery expectations with work limitations and functional disability in a working population experiencing acute low back pain (LBP). Workers (n = 241) with acute, work-related LBP completed measures of pain and injury at medical intake...

The aim of this prospective study was to explore the role of catastrophizing in vulvovaginal pain. The study entails two research questions. The first question was whether catastrophizing predicts the occurrence of vulvovaginal pain. The second question focused on exploring the links between catastrophizing, partner responses and pain. Five hundred...

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a gastrointestinal disorder linked to disturbances in the gut-brain axis. Visceral hypersensitivity and pain are hallmarks of IBS and linked to the physiological and psychological burden and to the nonadaptive coping with stress. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for IBS has proven effective in reducing gastrointe...

Purpose Employer policies and practices have been shown to impact workplace disability, but research in this area has waned in recent years despite an aging workforce, a growing prevalence of chronic health conditions, and a larger proportion of working-age adults on permanent work disability in many jurisdictions. The purpose of this article is to...

Introduction Outcome assessment is a central issue in work disability prevention research. The goal of this paper was to (1) ascertain the most salient workplace outcomes; (2) evaluate the congruence between business and science perspectives; (3) illustrate new perspectives on assessing longitudinal outcomes; and (4) provide recommendations for adv...

Purpose Flexible work arrangements are growing in order to develop resource-efficient production and because of advanced technologies, new societal values, changing demographics, and globalization. The article aims to illustrate the emerging challenges and opportunities for work disability prevention efforts among workers in alternate work arrangem...

Aim of Investigation In everyday life and in clinical settings people often have expectations about future pain outcomes. Such pain-specific expectations have a well-documented influence on the subjective experience of pain and responses to pain, and are generally considered a major predictor of pain treatment outcomes. Pain-specific expectations d...

Co-occurring emotional distress and chronic pain are a true challenge in the clinic. This combination of symptoms is quite common but associated with poor treatment results, frequent relapses and costly dysfunction. This paper describes a transdiagnostic approach to the problem by focusing on psychological processes that drive both the emotional as...

Objectives: The first aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of sleep deficit in a large sample of adolescents. Secondly, the study aimed to assess whether short sleep duration in the sample was associated with emotional and behavioral problems. Lastly, the study aimed to investigate the association between daily stressors-bedtime activitie...

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a highly prevalent disorder with a significant impact on quality of life. The presence of psychological symptoms in IBS patients such as catastrophic worry and behavioral avoidance suggests the possible efficacy of cognitive behavioral interventions. Exposure-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has proven to b...

Introduction Chronic pain causes suffering for affected individuals and incurs costs to society through work disability. Interventions based on early screening of psychological risk factors for chronic pain using screening tools such as the Örebro Musculoskeletal Pain Screening Questionnaire (ÖMPSQ) have been found to reduce work absenteeism and he...

Objective: The objective was to investigate the role of psychiatric and somatic conditions in incident and persistent insomnia. Design: This was a prospective study with 3 measurement points over 1.5years. Setting: The participants were sent a survey to their home addresses. Participants: A survey was sent out to 5000 random individuals (18-...

Objective: To characterize the measurement scales and levels of psychological distress reported among published studies of acute low back pain (LBP) in the scientific literature. Data sources: Peer-reviewed scientific literature found in 8 citation index search engines (Cinahl, Embase, Mantis, PsycINFO, PubMed, Web of Science, AMED, Academic Sea...

Objectives The purpose of this longitudinal investigation was to examine the association between emotion regulation and future insomnia (incidence and persistence). DesignA longitudinal study in the general population. MethodsA survey was sent out to 5,000 individuals in the community. To those who returned the baseline questionnaire (n=2,333), two...

The aim of the current study was to assess the association between sleep duration and sleep patterns and academic performance in 16–19 year-old adolescents using registry-based academic grades. A large population-based study from Norway conducted in 2012, the youth@hordaland-survey, surveyed 7798 adolescents aged 16–19 years (53.5% girls). The surv...

Pain, sleep and catastrophizing : The conceptualization matters : Comment on Wilt JA et al. “A multilevel path model analysis of the relations between sleep, pain, and pain catastrophizing in chronic pain rehabilitation patients”

Objectives: To study the efficacy of tailored behavioural medicine treatment within a physical therapy framework. Methods: The study was a randomized controlled study (RCT): tailored behavioural medicine treatment (EXT) delivered by physical therapists (PTs) was compared with exercise-based treatment (CT). Thirty-two adolescents (mean age 14.3 y...

This is a brief presentation on the issues concerning baselines in single case research. Steven Linton was unable to present his data on this topic and the following is rather poor substitute for his material.

Introduction: Sleep deprivation is emerging as a major problem during adolescence, with severe consequences for mental and physical health. The need for preventive interventions in this age group is pressing. However, research has shown that sleep education is not enough. One big challenge is how to motivate adolescents to change their sleep routin...