Cited by 954Musculoskeletal pain and rehabilitationPediatric Pain Management TechniquesPain Management and Treatment

The role of psychosocial processes in the development and maintenance of chronic pain

Open access
Edwards, Robert R., Dworkin, Robert H., Sullivan, Mark D., Turk, Dennis C., Wasan, Ajay D.·2016·The Journal of Pain

Abstract

Unlabelled The recently proposed Analgesic, Anesthetic, and Addiction Clinical Trial Translations, Innovations, Opportunities, and Networks (ACTTION)-American Pain Society (APS) Pain Taxonomy (AAPT) provides an evidence-based, multidimensional, chronic pain classification system. Psychosocial factors play a crucial role within several dimensions of the taxonomy. In this article, we discuss the evaluation of psychosocial factors that influence the diagnosis and trajectory of chronic pain disorders. We review studies in individuals with a variety of persistent pain conditions, and describe evidence that psychosocial variables play key roles in conferring risk for the development of pain, in shaping long-term pain-related adjustment, and in modulating pain treatment outcomes. We consider "general" psychosocial variables such as negative affect, childhood trauma, and social support, as well as "pain-specific" psychosocial variables that include pain-related catastrophizing, self-efficacy for managing pain, and pain-related coping. Collectively, the complexity and profound variability in chronic pain highlights the need to better understand the multidimensional array of interacting forces that determine the trajectory of chronic pain conditions.Perspective The AAPT is an evidence-based chronic pain classification system in which psychosocial concepts and processes are essential in understanding the development of chronic pain and its effects. In this article we review psychosocial processes that influence the onset, exacerbation, and maintenance of chronic pain disorders.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.jpain.2016.01.001

Cites

268 of 268 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Anxiety and depression could exacerbate pain intensity, facilitate the transition from acute to chronic pain, or have a causal effect on pain onset, especially anxiety.

    “Evidence suggests that anxiety and depression could exacerbate pain intensity, facilitate the transition of the acute to CP,10 or even have a causal effect on the onset of pain, especially in the case of anxiety.”

    From Psychological interventions for depression and anxiety: a systematic review and meta-analysis of Iranian chronic pain trials. (2020) · cites this paper as [10]

    The General Psychosocial Factors section says premorbid psychological dysfunction is a risk factor for later chronic pain and that higher distress predicts transition from acute to chronic musculoskeletal pain. The Biopsychosocial Model section also links anxiety and depression with worse pain outcomes after joint replacement. These passages do not establish a causal effect on pain onset or identify anxiety as a particularly strong cause. (LLM, conf=0.86)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • For the majority of patients who walk through the door of an outpatient orthopaedic clinic, providers lack a more robust psychologically informed model to understand individual differences in motivation, learning, cognition, affect, communication, coping-style, resilience, social orientation, and health-related behaviours.

    “For the majority of patients who walk through the door of an outpatient orthopaedic clinic, providers lack a more robust psychologically informed model to understand individual differences in motivation, learning, cognition, affect, communication, coping-style, resilience, social orientation, and health-related behaviours (Boselie & Vlaeyen, 2017;Edwards et al., 2016;Wideman et al., 2013).”

    From Beyond yellow flags: The Big‐Five personality traits and psychologically informed musculoskeletal rehabilitation. (2023) · cites this paper as Edwards et al., 2016

    The Biopsychosocial Model of Pain section (page not provided) says the model is nearly universally accepted in principle but not necessarily in practice, and criticizes its vagueness about how psychosocial factors interact. This supports a need for a more useful psychologically informed framework, but the paper does not establish that providers lack one for the majority of patients attending outpatient orthopaedic clinics. (LLM, conf=0.83)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • Pain is a biopsychosocial phenomenon.

    “Our skepticism about the generalizability of the American and European trials to a Middle Eastern population such as Iranian community is based on the fact that pain is a biopsychosocial phenomenon.10,22,23”
  • Psychosocial variables are more predictive of long-term disability than physical measures in some cases.

    “Evidence in some cases demonstrates that psychosocial variables are more predictive of long-term disability than physical measures (Edwards et al., 2016;Piva et al., 2009).”
  • Yellow flags represent a narrow set of cognitive and affective responses to pain.

    “However, yellow flags represent a narrow set of cognitive and affective responses to pain (Crofford, 2015;Edwards et al., 2016).”

    From Beyond yellow flags: The Big‐Five personality traits and psychologically informed musculoskeletal rehabilitation. (2023) · cites this paper as Edwards et al., 2016

    In the References (page unavailable), the only mention of “yellow flags” is in the title of a cited work, which identifies them as psychological risk factors. The paper discusses cognitive and affective processes elsewhere, but the passages found do not say that yellow flags represent a narrow set of those responses (searched: “yellow flags” and related terms). (LLM, conf=0.72)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. [79]Gracely RH Geisser ME Giesecke T Grant MA Petzke F Williams DA Clauw DJ Pain catastrophizing and neural responses to pain among persons with fibromyalgia Brain 127 835 843 2004 14960499

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Edwards, R. R., Dworkin, R. H., Sullivan, M. D., Turk, D. C., & Wasan, A. D.
Affiliations
  • Brigham and Women's Hospital (US)
  • University of Rochester Medicine (US)
  • University of Washington (US)
  • University of Pittsburgh (US)
Corresponding author
Edwards, Robert R.
Venue
The Journal of Pain
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2016-09
Volume
17
Issue
9
Pages
T70-T92
ISSN
1526-5900 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2515541350
Cited by
954
References
266
Citations by year
2026: 97 · 2025: 120 · 2024: 111 · 2023: 159 · 2022: 103 · 2021: 111 · 2020: 94 · 2019: 71 · 2018: 48 · 2017: 29 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 1
FWCI
5.95
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Journal of Pain (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
  • U.S. Food and Drug Administration (U01-FD005936)
  • National Institute on Aging (R01AG034982)
  • National Institute on Drug Abuse (R21DA041020)
  • National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (R01AR064367)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Pharmacology › Musculoskeletal pain and rehabilitation
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health › Pediatric Pain Management Techniques
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine › Pain Management and Treatment
Keywords
chronic pain, psychosocial factors, pain catastrophizing, pain self-efficacy, pain coping, negative affect, childhood trauma, social support, pain treatment outcomes
MeSH terms
Adaptation, Psychological, Avoidance Learning, Fear, Humans, Pain Measurement, Risk Factors, Self Efficacy, Chronic Pain

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review