Meaning-focused coping, pain, and affect: a diary study of hospitalized women with rheumatoid arthritis

The aim of the study was to investigate the relationship between affective state, pain, and coping in hospitalized women with rheumatoid arthritis, including both between- and within-person perspectives.

Participants were 95 female patients between 24 and 82 years of age (M = 50.91; SD = 13.80). For three consecutive days, they rated each night their state affect (positive and negative), pain level, and coping strategies (emotion-, problem- and meaning-focused ones). Relations among variables were tested with a multilevel approach with time included as a covariate.

Within-person meaning-focused coping suppressed the negative pain effect on emotional state, but only for positive affect (Sobel's z = 2.07, p = .04). Moderators of the pain-affect relationship were between-person differences in pain level (B = -.23, SE = .08, t = -2.884, p = .004) and in meaning-focused coping (B = -.63, SE = .20, t = -2.097, p = .04). Specifically, suppression was significant only for patients who reported lower than sample average pain levels and for patients who reported lower than sample average use of meaning-focused strategies.

Findings indicated that meaning-focused coping can be a crucial strategy for keeping daily positive affect in the face of chronic pain and how this effect is modified by interindividual differences. Even if restricted to the specific context, it may inform an intervention for hospitalized women with rheumatoid arthritis.