Associations of Pain Intensity and Frequency With Loneliness, Hostility, and Social Functioning: Cross-Sectional, Longitudinal, and Within-Person Relationships

摘要

BackgroundThe current studies investigated associations between pain intensity and pain frequency with loneliness, hostility, and social functioning using cross-sectional, longitudinal, and within-person data from community-dwelling adults with varying levels of pain.MethodSecondary analysis of preexisting data was conducted. Study 1 investigated cross-sectional (baseline data: n=741) and longitudinal (follow-up data: n=549, observed range between baseline and follow-up: 6-53months) associations. Study 2 tested within-person associations using daily diaries across 30days from a subset of the participants in Study 1 (n=69).ResultsCross-sectionally, pain intensity and frequency were associated with higher loneliness ((intensity)=0.16, (frequency)=0.17) and worse social functioning ((intensity)=-0.40, (frequency)=-0.34). Intensity was also associated with higher hostility (=0.11). Longitudinally, pain intensity at baseline predicted hostility (=0.19) and social functioning (=-0.20) at follow-up, whereas pain frequency only predicted social functioning (=-0.21). Within people, participants reported higher hostility (=0.002) and worsesocial functioning (=-0.013) on days with higher pain, and a significant average pain by daily pain interaction was found for loneliness. Pain intensity did not predict social well-beingvariables on the following day.ConclusionPain intensity and frequency were associated with social well-being, although the effects were dependent on the social well-being outcome and the time course being examined.