Parenting Styles, Mental Health, and Catastrophizing in Women with Chronic Pelvic Pain: A Case-Control Study

Chronic pelvic pain (CPP) in women is a highly prevalent condition worldwide and requires multimodal treatment. Adverse childhood experiences have been associated with CPP in women, while allodynia and poor outcomes have been linked to pain catastrophizing in these patients. Pain perception has been associated with parenting style during childhood. The objective of this study was to investigate the association between parenting style, pain catastrophizing, anxiety, depression and CPP in women. A case-control study was conducted between May 2018 and August 2021 with 123 women with CPP and 123 pain-free controls. Questionnaires were used to collect participants' data. The association between parenting style and CPP was assessed using multiple logistic regression, with odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) being calculated. The correlation between catastrophizing, pain intensity, pain duration, anxiety, depression, and parenting style in women with CPP was assessed using Spearman's rank correlation coefficient (r). A higher frequency of low maternal care (60.7% versus 45.2%; p = 0.026), anxiety (79.7% versus 56.9%; p < 0.001), depression (73.2% versus 56.1%; p = 0.008) and physical violence (31.7% versus 14.6%; p = 0.003) was found in the CPP group compared to the controls. There was no association between parenting style and CPP in the adjusted analysis. A positive correlation was found between catastrophizing and pain intensity (r = 0.342; p < 0.001), anxiety (r = 0.271; p = 0.002), depression (r = 0.272; p = 0.002), and maternal overprotection (r = 0.185; p = 0.046). A negative correlation was found between anxiety and maternal (r = -0.184; p = 0.047) and paternal (r = -0.286; p = 0.006) care and between depression and maternal (r = -0.219; p = 0.018) and paternal (r = -0.234; p = 0.026) care. The present results suggest a significant but weak association of parenting style with pain catastrophizing, the mental health of women with CPP, and the way in which they experience pain.