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Personality and temperament correlates of pain catastrophizing in young adolescents
Peter Muris1, Cor Meesters, Anja van den Hout
1Institute of Psychology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, PO Box 1738, 3000 DR, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. muris@fsw.eur.nl
Abstract:
Pain catastrophizing is generally viewed as an important cognitive factor underlying chronic pain. The present study examined personality and temperament correlates of pain catastrophizing in a sample of young adolescents (N = 132). Participants completed the Pain Catastrophizing Scale for Children, as well as scales for measuring sensitivity of the behavioral inhibition and behavioral activation systems (BIS-BAS), and various reactive and regulative temperament traits. Results demonstrated that BIS, reactive temperament traits (fear and anger-frustration), and perceptual sensitivity were positively related to pain catastrophizing, whereas regulative traits (attention control, inhibitory control) were negatively associated with this cognitive factor. Further, regression analyses demonstrated that only BIS and the temperamental traits of fear and perceptual sensitivity accounted for a unique proportion of the variance in adolescents' pain catastrophizing scores.
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