Self-report and psychophysiological effects of five pain-coping strategies

One hundred nulliparous college female undergraduates were randomly assigned to a series of 10 treatment groups that comprised a variety of cognitive-behavioral pain-coping strategies designed as part of a labor preparation analogue. The efficacy of these treatments was subsequently assessed during a one-hour session involving twenty 80-sec exposures to a laboratory pain stimulus patterned to resemble labor contractions. Dependent variables included self-reported pain, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, frontalis EMG, and heart rate. One of the cognitive strategies--sensory transformation--was found to have a significant effect on self-reported pain. Analyses conducted on the other five dependent variables failed to show significant treatment effects.