The Relationship between Marital Status and Psychological Resilience in Chronic Pain

Abstract EN

We examined the relationship between marital status and a 2-stage model of pain-related effect, consisting of pain unpleasantness and suffering.

We studied 1914 chronic pain patients using multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) to clarify whether marital status was a determinant factor in the emotional or ideational suffering associated with chronic pain after controlling for pain sensation intensity, age, and ethnicity.

Marital status was unrelated to immediate unpleasantness (P=0.08).

We found a strong association with emotional suffering (P<0.0001) but not with negative illness beliefs (P=0.44).

Interestingly, widowed subjects experienced significantly less frustration, fear, and anger than all other groups (married, divorced, separated, or single).

A final MANCOVA including sex as a covariate revealed that the emotional response to pain was the same for both widow and widower.

Only those individuals whose spouse died experienced less emotional turmoil in the face of a condition threatening their lifestyle.

These data suggest that after experiencing the death of a spouse, an individual may derive some “emotional inoculation” against future lifestyle threat.