Pathways to growth in chronic pain: Understanding mechanisms of posttraumatic growth in racial minorities

Chronic pain, affecting one in three U.S. adults, is a significant traumatic experience, frequently co-occurring with psychological disorders. This presents a substantial healthcare challenge, particularly for racial minorities who experience greater disparities. Considering that research on chronic pain in racial minorities largely focuses on pathology, in the current study, we investigated the mechanism of experiencing posttraumatic growth (PTG) through rumination and the interaction between event centrality (EC) and core belief (CB) disruption. The sample consisted of 622 adults (253 Black, 173 Asian, and 196 Latinx) with chronic pain who were recruited from Amazon's Mechanical Turk. Among the three racial groups, we examined the paths leading to PTG and the interaction between EC and CB disruption on rumination processes and PTG, controlling for demographic variables. Indirect effects were significant for only Black and Latinx adults. When inspecting the moderation effect of EC and CB, there was a significant effect on PTG among Asian individuals (β = 0.20, 95% CI [0.08, 0.42]), but no significant effect on PTG was found among Black (β = -0.07, 95% CI [-0.19, 0.03]) and Latinx (β = 0.01, 95% CI [-0.11, 0.20]) individuals. Our findings highlight the importance of not only examining how people process traumatic events but also assessing the presence of EC and CB disruptions among ethno-racial minority groups in examining PTG. The study contributes to expanding the PTG model among people with chronic pain and contributing to the development of culturally informed interventions. PERSPECTIVE: These insights emphasize the need for researchers and psychologists to consider racial variations in the experience of PTG, underscoring the importance of culturally specific interventions for enhancing psychological resilience and growth in racial and ethnic minority people with chronic pain.