Emotional states and pain: intraindividual and interindividual measures of association

The present study investigated the correlation between cancer pain severity and mood states, and addressed methodological issues involved in measuring the association between these groups of variables. Five monthly interviews were administered to 95 cancer pain patients; each interview contained four measures of pain severity and the Profile of Mood States (POMS). The relationships between the two sets of variables were assessed using both interindividual (cross-sectional) and intraindividual (within-subject) methods of correlational analysis. Both types of analyses suggested small but significant positive correlations between the pain measures and negative mood states, and inverse correlations between pain and positive mood. The data also indicated that patients reported high levels of pain but reported little mood disturbance. In addressing methodological issues, the study clarified conceptual and computational differences between the two types of correlational analyses and indicated the appropriate applications of each method.