Pain beliefs. What do elders believe?

The purpose of this descriptive study was to better understand elders' beliefs regarding chronic pain. The research questions were (a) What are the pain beliefs of elders experiencing nonmalignant chronic pain (NMP) and chronic pain associated with malignancy with the hope for recovery (MHR)? (b) Are there differences in pain beliefs between the NMP group and the MHR group? and (c) Do elders have similar or different pain beliefs? Sixty adults age 65 or older, all cognitively intact, completed the Pain Beliefs Questionnaire; 30 had arthritis and 30 had cancer. Of the total, 60% responded that pain is the result of damage to the body--either often, almost always, or always. Another 13% believed that pain was rarely or never the result of such damage, and 15% rarely or never saw pain as a sign of illness. In all, 68% responded that depression makes pain seem worse.