The role of experiential avoidance, resilience, and pain acceptance in the adjustment of chronic pain patients who have experienced a traumatic event.

Abstract

Background The degree to which shared vulnerability and protective factors for chronic pain and trauma-related symptoms contribute to pain adjustment in chronic pain patients who have experienced a traumatic event remains unclear. Purpose The purpose is to test a hypothetical model of the contribution of experiential avoidance, resilience and pain acceptance to pain adjustment in a sample of 229 chronic back pain patients who experienced a traumatic event before the onset of pain. Methods Structural equation modelling was used to test the linear relationships between the variables. Results The empirical model shows significant relationships between the variables: resilience on pain acceptance and trauma-related symptoms, experiential avoidance on traumarelated symptoms and experiential avoidance, pain acceptance and trauma-related symptoms on pain adjustment. Conclusions This study demonstrates the role of a vulnerability pathway (i.e. experiential avoidance) and a protective pathway (i.e. resilience and pain acceptance) in adaptation to pain after a traumatic event.