title: The Acute versus Chronic Pain Questionnaire (ACPQ) and actual pain experience in older people.
abstract: The Acute versus Chronic Pain Questionnaire (ACPQ) was applied to older people. Two groups emerged from an analysis of which an item of each pair (an acute and a chronic affective item) was considered to cause the most suffering. One group of subjects comprised those who expected to suffer more from one or more acute pain items (high-ACPQ group, n = 35). A second group emerged for whom none of the acute items was considered to be a burden (low-ACPQ group, n = 33). It was hypothesized that, compared to the low-ACPQ group, the subjects with high-ACPQ scores selected acute ACPQ-items due to a decline in the experience of chronic affective pain. This hypothesis predicted lower scores on the chronic ACPQ-items and lower scores on scales evaluating the subjects' own chronic affective pain. The results showed that, irrespective of the group, the chronic ACPQ-items were considered to produce the most burdens. However, compared with the low-ACPQ group, the high-ACPQ group reported experiencing significantly more pain from the acute ACPQ-items. Moreover, the latter group indicated suffering less pain from their own chronic pain conditions. The present findings suggest that the selection of one or more acute items of the ACPQ (high-ACPQ group) may point to an alteration in subjects' actual pain experience.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Neuropsychology, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. EJA.Scherder@psy.vu.nl
authors.forename: E J A
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Scherder
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Smit
authors.forename: P J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Vuijk
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bouma
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Sergeant
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living / Q000523:psychology; D000208:Acute Disease; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D002908:Chronic Disease; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008609:Mental Status Schedule; D008875:Middle Aged; D010146:Pain / Q000145:classification / Q000523:psychology; D010147:Pain Measurement / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D017288:Pain Threshold