Psychological responses to episodic chest pain.
Patients with chronic musculo-skeletal pain have been profiled as "dysfunctional", "interpersonally distressed" or "adaptive copers". The relevance of these for episodic visceral pain is unknown. Our aim was to replicate conceptually the taxonomy in patients with episodic visceral pain. Patients with chest pain and gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GERD; n=25), coronary artery (CAD; n=20), or with chest pain but without either reflux or coronary artery disease (non-cardiac chest pain--NCCP; n=23) were assessed using several standard affective and cognitive measures relevant to pain. Differences between the diagnostic groups were explored. K-means cluster analysis broadly replicated the three groups found in previous research but the "interpersonally distressed" group had few members. An additional cluster analysis suggested a more parsimonious solution for the sample was a two-cluster one, which approximated to the "adaptive coper" and "dysfunctional" profiles. Membership of both the three- and two-cluster profiles was not associated with membership of specific diagnostic category.
Salford Pain Centre, Hope Hospital, UK.
Kampadi
K
Okpa
Stephen
S
Morley
Anthony R
AR
Hobson
Sanchoy
S
Sarkar
Teri
T
Melaine
David
D
Thompson
Qasim
Q
Aziz
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000328:Adult; D002637:Chest Pain / Q000523:psychology*; D002908:Chronic Disease; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D003324:Coronary Artery Disease / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D005764:Gastroesophageal Reflux / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010146:Pain / Q000523:psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires