Depression and physical disability in chronic pain: The mediation role of emotional intelligence and acceptance.

• Autor(a) principal: Costa, Joana
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Outros Autores: Marôco, João, Pinto-Gouveia, José, Ferreira, Nuno
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10316/47152; https://doi.org/10.1111/ajpy.12131
• topic: - Acceptance and Emotional Intelligence decrease depression levels while acceptance has more influence on decrease physical disability. - The influence of Emotional Intelligence and acceptance on outcomes varies across disease progression. - Long-term Chronic Pain patients are better able to used emotional and cognitive control when this is needed, but cease it when unchangeable pain is present; Chronic pain experiences, physical disability, emotional intelligence, acceptance, depression.

Objective: Emotional intelligence (EI) and acceptance have previously been identified as potential factors in the adjustment to Chronic Pain. This study examined the associations between Chronic Pain (CP) experiences, depression, and physical disability. It further investigated the mediating effect of emotional intelligence (EI) and acceptance in the relationship between CP experiences, depression, and physical disability and how this changes with the duration of the CP. Method: A cross-sectional design, employing validated questionnaires was used to measure pain experience, physical disability, depression, EI and acceptance in 133 CP patients. Results: All variables were found to be significantly associated in theoretically predicted ways. The relationship between CP experiences and depression was mediated by both factors, as high EI and acceptance promoted a decreased influence of pain on depression. By contrast, the relationship between CP experiences and physical disability was mediated by acceptance, but not by EI. Further, the temporal stability analysis of this mediation model showed that long-term CP patients are better able to make use of these factors. Conclusions: the relationship between the experience of pain and depression or physical disability seems to be significantly mediated by factors such as EI and acceptance. This study lends further support to the development of more encompassing models, that take both control and non-control variables into account when conceptualizing the adjustment to CP. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.