Linguistic indicators of chronic pain acceptance in individuals with spinal cord injury

Pain acceptance is a robust predictor of adjustment to chronic pain, including pain in those with spinal cord injury (SCI). This preliminary study aimed to identify linguistic patterns indicative of chronic pain acceptance to gain new insights into the underlying cognitive-emotional process of this construct.

Individuals with SCI and chronic pain (N = 30) completed the Chronic Pain Acceptance Questionnaire (CPAQ) and a semistructured interview about their pain. Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software was used to quantify linguistic categories of interest in transcribed interviews.

Results of hierarchical linear regressions (controlling for pain intensity, age, and education) showed that personal pronouns explained an additional 26.9% of the variance in CPAQ activity engagement, which was associated with a lower frequency of first-person plural pronouns and a higher frequency of third person pronouns. Conjunction words explained an additional 12.8% and 19.2% of the variance in CPAQ total and pain willingness scores, respectively; frequency of conjunction words was negatively associated with acceptance. Perceptual processes words accounted for an additional 39.9% of the variance in pain willingness, which was associated with a lower frequency of seeing words and a higher frequency of hearing and feeling words.

Findings suggest that pain acceptance is associated with unique linguistic patterns that can be identified in natural word use among individuals with SCI and chronic pain. Future research to further investigate linguistic indicators of pain acceptance and other clinically relevant pain constructs is warranted and could advance theoretical models of pain adaptation and clinical approaches to treating pain. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).