Vaginismus: heightened harm avoidance and pain catastrophizing cognitions.
BACKGROUND
Catastrophic appraisal of experienced pain may promote hypervigilance and intense pain, while the personality trait of harm avoidance (HA) might prevent the occurrence of correcting such experiences. Women inflicted with vaginismus may enter a self-perpetuating downward spiral of increasing avoidance of (anticipated) pain. In vaginismus the anticipation of pain may give rise to catastrophic pain ideation. This may establish hypervigilance toward painful sexual stimuli, which consequently results in negative appraisal of sexual cues. This process could impair genital and sexual responding, intensify pain and trigger avoidance, which in turn may contribute to the onset and persistence of symptoms in vaginismus and to certain extent also in dyspareunia.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate whether women suffering from vaginismus are characterized by heightened levels of habitual pain catastrophic cognitions, together with higher levels of HA.


METHODS
This study consisted of three groups: a lifelong vaginismus group (N = 35, mean age = 28.4; standard deviation [SD] = 5.8), a dyspareunia group (N = 33, mean age = 26.7; SD = 6.8), and women without sexual complaints (N = 54, mean age = 26.5; SD = 6.7).


METHODS
HA scale of Cloninger's tridimensional personality questionnaire, and the pain catastrophizing scale.


RESULTS
Specifically women inflicted with vaginismus showed significantly heightened levels of catastrophic pain cognitions compared with the other two groups, as well as significant enhanced HA vs. the control group, and a trend vs. the dyspareunia group. Both traits were shown to have cumulative predictive validity for the presence of vaginismus.


CONCLUSIONS
This study focused on the personality traits of catastrophizing pain cognitions and HA in women with lifelong vaginismus. Our findings showed that indeed, women suffering from vaginismus are characterized by trait of HA interwoven with habitual pain catastrophizing cognitions. This study could help in the refinement of the current conceptualization and might shed light on the already available treatment options for women with vaginismus.
Department of Clinical Psychology and Experimental Psychopathology, University of Groningen, The Netherlands. c.borg@med.umcg.nl
Charmaine
C
Borg
Madelon L
ML
Peters
Willibrord Weijmar
WW
Schultz
Peter J
PJ
de Jong
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D058443:Catastrophization; D004414:Dyspareunia / Q000209:etiology*; D005260:Female; D040261:Harm Reduction; D006801:Humans; D010147:Pain Measurement; D010551:Personality; D012725:Sexual Behavior / Q000523:psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D052065:Vaginismus / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology*