When Is Helping your Partner with Chronic Pain a Burden? The Relation Between Helping Motivation and Personal and Relational Functioning.
OBJECTIVE
Self-determination theory (SDT) may be a useful framework to understand why chronic pain affects partners. SDT postulates that individuals can engage in helping behaviors for different motives varying from more autonomous or volitional motives to more controlled or pressured motives. This article examines the relationship between partners' type of motivation to help (i.e., autonomous vs controlled) and their personal and relational functioning. Furthermore, mechanisms underlying this relationship (i.e., helping exhaustion and relationship-based need satisfaction) were examined.


METHODS
In a sample of 48 couples, of which one partner had chronic pain (36 female patients), questionnaires measuring life satisfaction, positive and negative affect, anxiety and depressive feelings, relationship quality and relationship-based need satisfaction were filled out. Individuals with chronic pain (ICPs) also reported on pain intensity and disability whereas partners were requested to report on motives for helping and helping exhaustion.


RESULTS
Data analysis with Structural Equation Modeling revealed that autonomous, relative to controlled, motives for helping among partners related positively to partners' well-being and relationship quality, and negatively to distress. The experience of helping exhaustion and relationship-based need satisfaction mediated these associations. Moreover, partners' autonomous helping motivation related positively to patient-reported relationship quality among ICPs high in pain intensity.


CONCLUSIONS
Applying SDT in a context of pain provides new insights into why chronic pain affects partners and how partners impact patient outcome. Directions for future research are outlined.
Departments of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
Sara
S
Kindt
Developmental, Personality and Social Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
Maarten
M
Vansteenkiste
Data Analysis, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
Tom
T
Loeys
Department of Psychology, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.
Annmarie
A
Cano
Departments of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.|Department of Healthcare and Technology, Leuven University College, Leuven, Belgium.
Emelien
E
Lauwerier
Departments of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
Lesley L
LL
Verhofstadt
Departments of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
Liesbet
L
Goubert
D000328:Adult; D017028:Caregivers / Q000523:psychology*; D059350:Chronic Pain / Q000523:psychology*; D017281:Cost of Illness; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009042:Motivation; D026684:Personal Autonomy; D011788:Quality of Life; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
Chronic Pain; Helping Behavior; Partner; Self-Determination Theory; Well-being