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Introduction
Publications
Publications (121)
Background
Limited research has been conducted on how healthcare simulation can mitigate clinician stress. Stress exposure training (SET) has been shown to decrease stress’s impact on performance. Combining SET with virtual reality (VR) simulation training has not yet been explored in the context of stress inoculation. The primary purpose of this p...
Purpose of Review
A wellspring of new research has offered varying models of resilience in chronic pain populations; however, resilience is a multifaceted and occasionally nebulous construct. The current review explores definitional and methodological issues in existing observational and clinical studies and offers new directions for future studies...
This book sheds light on the translation of current mechanistic research on placebo effects to develop comprehensive and adequate strategies for better symptom management and treatment. This book identifies three core aspects to bridge state-of-the-art concepts with day-to-day clinical practice. First, lessons from mechanistic placebo research indi...
Introduction
An area of emerging interest in chronic pain populations concerns fear of pain and associated fear of movement (kinesiophobia)—a cognitive appraisal pattern that is well-validated in non-headache chronic pain. However, there is limited research on whether this construct can be measured in a similar manner in headache populations.
Meth...
Background:
Neuropathic pain following spinal cord injury (SCI) affects approximately 60% of individuals with SCI. Effective pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments remain elusive. We recently demonstrated that our immersive virtual reality walking intervention (VRWalk) may be effective for SCI NP. Additionally, we found that SCI NP may...
Chronic pain acceptance is a psychological process consistently linked with improved functional outcomes. However, existing research on this construct has not considered the role of racial or ethnic background, despite growing evidence of racialized disparities in pain experience and treatment. This study aimed to examine racial differences in chro...
Background:
Recent research has found child pain-related injustice appraisals to be associated with adverse pain-related outcomes. However, this evidence is mainly based on research using a measure developed for adults in the context of accident-related injuries, which may not translate to paediatric pain populations. Research on the phenomenology...
Background:
Youth pain-related injustice appraisals are associated with adverse functioning; however, mechanisms by which injustice appraisals exert their impact have yet to be elucidated. Adult injustice literature suggests anger, sadness, and attention bias to anger (AB) as potential mechanisms. This study examined the effects of injustice appra...
This study examined the negative impact of social discrimination on the time to pain tolerance during experimentally induced cold pressor pain among healthy individuals. It was hypothesized that the degree to which one catastrophized about pain would exacerbate the negative impact of a history discriminatory experiences on pain tolerance, and that...
Neuropathic pain is a particularly refractory form of pain following SCI and is typically experienced at or below the neurological level of injury. SCI-related neuropathic pain has been associated with maladaptive neuroplastic changes in supraspinal regions of the central nervous system. Conceptually, SCI-related neuropathic pain can be understood...
Objectives
The current study investigated the role of maternal child- and self-oriented injustice appraisals about child pain in understanding maternal attention for child pain and adult anger cues and pain-attending behavior.
Methods
Forty-four children underwent a painful cold pressor task (CPT) while their mother observed. Eye tracking was used...
The current qualitative study sought to obtain an in-depth understanding of how Arab-Americans conceptualize perceived injustice concerning their chronic low back pain (CLBP) by reflecting on the Injustice Experience Questionnaire (IEQ). Twelve Arab-American adults with CLBP were recruited from a metropolitan area in Alabama using a purposive sampl...
Mechanisms explaining the relationship between pain-related injustice appraisals and functional outcomes in youth with chronic pain have yet to be examined. In studies of adults, greater pain-related injustice is associated with worse depressive symptoms and greater pain through greater anger. No study to date has examined anger expression as a med...
Pain appraisals are closely tied to pain and functional outcomes. Pain-related injustice and pain catastrophizing appraisals have both been identified as important cognitive-emotional factors in the pain experience of youth. Although pain-related injustice and catastrophizing have been linked to worse pain outcomes – as primary predictors and inter...
Retrospective analysis of cross-sectional data.
To verify the factor structure of the Injustice Experience Questionnaire (IEQ) using a sample of individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI) and to assess IEQ scale reliability and construct validity using the same population.
Two SCI rehabilitation sites in the United States.
Three datasets were combin...
Chronic neuropathic pain (NP) is a common and often debilitating secondary condition for persons with spinal cord injury (SCI) and is minimally responsive to existing pharmacological and nonpharmacological treatments. The current preliminary investigation describes the feasibility and initial comparative efficacy of an interactive virtual reality w...
Objectives
Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a genetic disorder that affects approximately 100,000 Americans, the majority of whom are African American. SCD-related pain often has deleterious effects on functioning and quality of life. The inherited nature of SCD, SCD-related stigma, and serious physical and functional impact of SCD-related pain create...
Objectives:
Driving is one of the most widespread aspects of daily living to people in the United States and is an active process that requires various cognitive functions, such as attention. Chronic low back pain (CLBP) is one of the more prevalent and costly health conditions in the world, with individuals who report CLBP also reporting signific...
Background:
Patterns of cognitive appraisal related to chronic pain may manifest differentially across time due to a variety of factors, but variability of injustice appraisals across time has not been examined. The current study details the validation of a brief, daily version of the Injustice Experience Questionnaire (IEQ), which measures injust...
Objectives: Individuals with sickle cell disease (SCD) experience significant health problems that may result in unpredictable pain episodes and frequent healthcare utilization. Disparities in clinical care may contribute to health-related stigma and racial bias for this majority African-American/Black population. There is less known about the infl...
This brief review provides a summary of existing research on virtual reality (VR) applications to pain. We distinguish three categories of studies - VR applications to clinical acute pain, chronic pain, and acute experimental pain, which are currently equally represented in the literature. The review highlights specific advancements in VR pain rese...
Objective:
For most patients with chronic low back pain (cLBP), the cause is "nonspecific," meaning there is no clear association between pain and identifiable pathology of the spine or associated tissues. Laypersons and providers alike are less inclined to help, feel less sympathy, dislike patients more, suspect deception, and attribute lower pai...
Previous research has consistently found that traumas of an interpersonal nature are associated with elevated levels of posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS). In the current study, we examined whether feelings of injustice related to sustained physical trauma mediate the association between the interpersonal nature of a traumatic injury and two outc...
Objectives:
The Illness Invalidation Inventory (3*I) was designed to assess individuals' perceived invalidation regarding chronic pain experiences. However, no study has yet investigated the psychometric properties of the 3*I among individuals with chronic low back pain (CLBP). Given the personal and societal impact of CLBP and the potential for i...
In the present set of studies, narcissism and painful experiences were examined. In Study 1, kinesiophobia and pain catastrophizing were assessed. In Study 2, participants experienced a socially painful experience via the game of Cyberball and were given a set of cognitive tasks to complete. In Study 3, participants’ reactions to experiencing a phy...
Background and purpose
Despite the notable benefits of physical activity for chronic pain, a large proportion of patients with chronic pain report that they do not receive activity-related recommendations from their providers. Research suggests that patient factors such as weight and gender influence activity-related recommendations for chronic pai...
Despite growing evidence of significant racial disparities in the experience and treatment of chronic pain, the mechanisms by which these disparities manifest have remained relatively understudied. The current study examined the relationship between past experiences of racial discrimination and pain-related outcomes (self-rated disability and depre...
Introduction: The experience of acute pain and pain-related fear negatively impact cognition and behavior; however, little research has examined their impacts on risky decision making and effort. The present study investigated the effects of acute pain and pain-related fear on risky decision making and effort during cognitive tests.
Method: Levels...
Study design:
Cross-sectional study.
Objective:
To identify unique predictors of perceived injustice compared with depression symptoms within the first year after SCI.
Setting:
Inpatient rehabilitation program in a large urban region in the Southwestern United States.
Methods:
A sample of 74 participants with median time since injury of 52 d...
Prior work suggests that providers are influenced by patient race and weight when making pain-related decisions. Providers with stronger implicit (automatic) attitudes about race and weight may be more likely to be influenced by these patient-level characteristics when making treatment decisions. In this multi-part study, we (a) examined the influe...
Introduction
A growing literature attests to the overwhelming prevalence of disabling chronic pain among people living with HIV (PLWH), yet very little is known about psychosocial contributors to poor chronic pain outcomes in this population. Pain-related perception of injustice may promote pain interference by hindering engagement in daily activit...
This groundbreaking analysis moves our knowledge of pain and its effects from the biomedical model to one accounting for its complex psychosocial dimensions. Starting with its facial and physical display, pain is shown in its manifold social contexts—in the lifespan, in a family unit, expressed by a member of a gender and/or race—and as observed by...
The goal of this volume has been to bring together “state-of-the-science” narrative reviews of major directions in the study of social and interpersonal dimensions of pain. This final chapter takes a broad overview of the feld, placing the
individual contributions in context. It begins with a historical overview, situating the
!eld of social/interp...
Injustice perception has emerged as a risk factor for problematic musculoskeletal pain outcomes. Despite the prevalence and impact of chronic low back pain (CLBP) no study has addressed injustice appraisals specifically among individuals with CLBP. In addition, despite racial/ethnic disparities in pain, existing injustice research has relied almost...
Pain is a disruptive experience occurring within an interpersonal context of multiple goal pursuit for both the pain sufferer and the pain observer. The observer’s affective-motivational response to another’s pain and caregiving behavior in turn impact the sufferers’ pain experience. Understanding the specific dynamics of interaction between the su...
Introduction: Fibromyalgia is a condition with symptoms of pain, physical function difficulties, and emotional problems, but is also characterized by complaints of poor cognition (often called “FibroFog”). Over the last two decades, a number of studies have examined cognitive differences between individuals with and without fibromyalgia. The purpos...
Pain is experienced in and influenced by social environments. For children with chronic pain, the child-parent relationship and parental beliefs about pain are particularly important and may influence pain outcomes. Pain-related injustice perceptions have recently been identified as an important cognitive-emotional factor for children with pain. Th...
Background: Perceived injustice, the belief that one’s injuries are undeserved, irreparable, and attributable to another’s error/negligence, has been found to be predictive of negative physical and psychosocial outcomes various musculoskeletal conditions. Although we are beginning to gain a better understanding of the correlates of injustice during...
Compared with men, women report more pain and are at increased risk for having pain discounted or misattributed to psychological causes. Overweight individuals experience high rates of pain and may receive suboptimal care because of provider bias. Research suggests the social consequences of being overweight are worse for women than men, and that g...
BACKGROUND & AIMS: Research has shown that appraisals of injustice contribute to deleterious pain-related outcomes. However, existing research on injustice appraisals has been restricted to an intrapersonal perspective (reflected in the Injustice Experience Questionnaire; IEQ1), thus constituting a critical gap in knowledge and assessment regarding...
Study design:
Cross-sectional study design involving completion of self-report measures.
Objective:
To investigate the relationship between perceived injustice, post-traumatic stress symptoms and depression in a sample of individuals receiving inpatient rehabilitation care following hospitalization for acute spinal cord injury (SCI), as well as...
Study design:
We conducted a cross-sectional study involving completion of self-report measures.
Objectives:
Individuals who acquire a spinal cord injury (SCI) face numerous physical and psychological challenges, with the former receiving considerable less attention during the rehabilitation process. In this article, we examined event centrality...
Objectives: Kinesiophobia is associated with pain disability across a number of physical conditions, particularly chronic low back pain [CLBP]. The Tampa Scale of Kinesiophobia [TSK] is the primary instrument for assessing kinesiophobia, and was originally developed in English. The objective of this study is to establish an Arabic version of TSK [T...
Objective: Perceived injustice – the belief that one’s injury is undeserved and attributable to another’s error or negligence – is predictive of negative physical and psychosocial outcomes among individuals with musculoskeletal conditions. Perceived injustice has also been associated with psychological constructs implicated in establishment and mai...
Despite widespread beliefs that trauma severity is related to levels of posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS), the empirical evidence to support such beliefs is lacking. In the current study we examined Injury Severity Score (ISS), a medical measure of event severity for physical injuries, in a sample of 460 patients admitted to a Level 1 Trauma Cen...
Objective. :
Evidence from adult samples suggests a co-occurrence between pain and alcohol abuse. However, studies in adolescents are scarce and results are inconsistent, with some studies observing heightened and others observing reduced alcohol consumption in adolescents suffering from pain. We hypothesized that in adolescents the association be...
Purpose/objective:
To investigate the feasibility of brain-computer interface (BCI) with patients on an inpatient spinal cord injury (SCI) unit. Research Method/Design: This study included 25 participants aged 18-64 who sustained traumatic or nontraumatic SCI and did not have severe cognitive or psychiatric impairment. Participants completed a var...
Chronic pain is prevalent in children/adolescents and contributes to high rates of healthcare utilization. Research suggests injustice perceptions about pain are important in adult patients and a possible treatment focus. We conducted a preliminary evaluation of the psychometric properties of the Injustice Experiences Questionnaire (IEQ) and the re...
The current study examined the relationship between perceived injustice and attentional bias (AB) toward pain among individuals with chronic low back pain asked to perform and appraise the pain and difficulty of a standardized set of common physical activities. A pictorial dot-probe task assessed AB toward pain stimuli (ie, pain faces cueing pain),...
Purpose/objective:
A recent study by Trost et al. (2015) investigated the influence of perceived injustice-reflecting appraisals of the severity and irreparability of loss following injury, blame, and unfairness-on physical and psychological outcomes in a sample of patients 12 months after sustaining a traumatic injury. This brief report examines...
Evidence supports the negative impact of perceived injustice on recovery following injury. However, little is known about sources that contribute to injustice perceptions in this context. Therefore, this study systematically investigated sources of injustice following painful musculoskeletal injury. Following completion of the Injustice Experiences...
The current study examined the association between perceived injustice (assessed by the Injustice Experiences Questionnaire) and intent to litigate in a sample of individuals who had recently suffered a spinal cord injury and were currently on an inpatient rehabilitation unit. Higher perception of injustice was associated with reported interest in...
Objective: A fundamental principle of rehabilitation psychology is that individual appraisals of the
social and physical environment—including injury itself— have profound consequences for coping
and adjustment. When core assumptions of a just and predictable world are violated and accompanied
by ostensibly undeserved suffering and loss, perception...
Purpose:
Accumulating research suggests that perceived injustice is a risk factor for adverse recovery following painful injury. Presently, however, little is known about the processes by which perceived injustice influences rehabilitation outcomes. It is plausible that perceived injustice and associated anger impact rehabilitation outcomes by com...
Objective:
Research on chronic low back pain (cLBP) has focused heavily on structural abnormalities with emphasis on diagnostic imaging. However, for many cLBP patients, clinical pain and disability are not clearly associated with identifiable pathology of the spine or associated tissues. Therefore, alternative determinants such as psychological f...
Background:
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) occur in individuals who sustain physical injury and share a significant overlap in symptoms. PTSD rates in the civilian injury population range from 20% to 40%. The current study examined the presence of PTSD symptoms at multiple time points (3 months and 6 months a...
Objective: to examine the role of event centrality in the psychological recovery from spinal cord injury (SCI).
Background: Individuals who sustain a SCI not only have to cope with the physical pain of the injury, but also the psychological consequences of the disability. Individuals who sustain a SCI can experience numerous associated and chronic...
There is growing recognition that individuals who experience traumatic injuries perceive themselves as victims of injustice and that elevated levels of perceived injustice are associated with problematic physical and psychological outcomes. To date, research regarding injustice perception and injury outcomes has been restricted to a small number of...
SUMMARY Virtual reality (VR) technologies have been successfully applied to acute pain interventions and recent reviews have suggested their potential utility in chronic pain. The current review highlights the specific relevance of VR interactive gaming technologies for pain-specific intervention, including their current use across a variety of phy...
Ostracism negatively affects fundamental needs and may impair some cognitive functions. The present study examined: (1) the duration of ostracism’s negative effects on fundamental needs, and (2) its associated effects on higher-order cognitive abilities. Participants were randomly assigned to be included or ostracized on Cyberball, and completed th...
Spinal cord injuries present serious health and quality of life concerns and can result in an array of issues that affect physical, psychological, and social functioning, which is reflected in the high cost of health-related services. Individuals who acquire an SCI experience numerous associated and chronic conditions (e.g., spasticity, heart disea...
Empathy for another's physical pain has been demonstrated in humans [1] and mice [2]; in both species, empathy is stronger between familiars. Stress levels in stranger dyads are higher than in cagemate dyads or isolated mice [2, 3], suggesting that stress might be responsible for the absence of empathy for the pain of strangers. We show here that b...
The current study employed a twin paradigm to examine the genetic and environmental contributions to pain catastrophizing as well as the observed association between pain catastrophizing and cold pressor task (CPT) outcomes. Male and female monozygotic (n=206) and dizygotic twins (n=194) from the University of Washington Twin Registry completed a m...