The influence of communication goals and physical demands on different dimensions of pain behavior

Michael J.L. Sullivan, Pascal Thibault, André Savard, Richard Catchlove, John Kozey, William D. Stanish

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

100 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The purpose of the present research was to examine the influence of communication goals and physical demands on the expression of communicative (e.g., facial grimaces) and protective (e.g., guarding) pain behaviors. Participants with musculoskeletal conditions (N = 50) were asked to lift a series of weights under two communication goal conditions. In one condition, participants were asked to estimate the weight of the object they lifted. In a second condition, participants were asked to rate their pain while lifting the same objects. The display of communicative pain behaviors varied as a function of the communication goal manipulation; participants displayed more communicative pain behavior when asked to rate their pain while lifting objects than when they estimated the weight of the object. Protective pain behaviors varied with the physical demands of the task, but not as a function of the communication goals manipulation. Pain ratings and self-reported disability were significantly correlated with protective pain behaviors but not with communicative pain behaviors. The results of this study support the functional distinctiveness of different forms of pain behavior. Findings are discussed in terms of evolutionary and learning theory models of pain behavior. Clinical implications of the findings are addressed.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)270-277
Number of pages8
JournalPain
Volume125
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 5 2006

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The authors thank Dorothée Ialongo-Lambin and Nathalie Gauthier for their assistance with data collection. The authors thank Marc-Olivier Martel and Jesse Bouvier for their assistance in coding and data entry. We are grateful to Dr. Christian Larivière for helpful comments on a previous version of this manuscript. Portions of this research were presented at the Annual Meeting of the British Pain Society, Edinburgh, Scotland, 2005. This research was supported by grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

ASJC Scopus Subject Areas

  • Neurology
  • Clinical Neurology
  • Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine

PubMed: MeSH publication types

  • Clinical Trial
  • Journal Article
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

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Sullivan, M. J. L., Thibault, P., Savard, A., Catchlove, R., Kozey, J., & Stanish, W. D. (2006). The influence of communication goals and physical demands on different dimensions of pain behavior. Pain, 125(3), 270-277. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pain.2006.06.019