Does interpretation bias moderate the relationship between pain and fear of cancer recurrence?

The Cancer Threat Interpretation model proposes that clinically significant fear of cancer recurrence/progression (FCR/P) can occur when people misinterpret ambiguous physical symptoms as a sign of recurrence. The aim of this research is to test whether interpretation biases moderate the relationship between pain and FCR/P in women with breast cancer, as predicted.

One hundred forty-seven women with breast cancer completed questionnaire measures of demographic and medical information, FCR/P, interpretation bias, and symptom burden, as well as other known predictors of FCR/P.

Women with clinically significant levels of FCR/P were more likely to interpret ambiguous words as health-related and experienced more pain than women with levels of FCR/P in the nonclinical range. FCR was associated with both pain (r = .40, p < .001) and interpretation bias (r = .45, p < .001). Interpretation bias and pain (r = .31, p < .001) were also associated with each other. Moderation analyses confirmed that interpretation bias moderated the relationship between pain and FCR (F(1, 143) = 5.76; p = .01). However, this was not the case with FOP (F(1, 143) = .21; p = .65).

We found that women with breast cancer with clinically significant FCR/P interpreted ambiguous words as health-related more often and experienced more pain than those with nonclinical FCR/P. Moreover, we found that among those with higher levels of pain, FCR was also higher only among those with higher levels of interpretation bias, as the threat interpretation model predicts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).