The financial cost for health care and lost productivity due to chronic pain has been estimated at over $70 billion per year. Researchers have attempted to discover the psychosocial and personality factors that discriminate between people who learn to cope well with chronic pain and those who have difficulty adjusting. The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of perceived locus of control and dispositional optimism on chronic pain treatment outcomes. Subjects reported significantly lower post-treatment pain levels as compared with pre-treatment levels (M = 0.66, SD = 1.58), t(45) = 2.85, p = .007 (two-tailed), but decreased pain was not associated with scores on the internality dimension of the Pain Locus of Control Scale (PLOC) or on the Life Orientation Test-Revised (LOT-R) (a measure of dispositional optimism). Overall, participants' increased coping ability was associated with scores on the LOT-R, but not with scores on the internality dimension of the PLOC. Subjects with the lowest pre-treatment scores on the LOT-R demonstrated significantly greater increases in post-treatment coping ability than those with the highest scores (F(2,40) = 3.93, p < .03). Participants with the highest pre-treatment scores on both the PLOC internality dimension and the LOT-R demonstrated greater …

The purpose of the current study was to investigate the effects of a multidisciplinary pain management program on five measures of subjective psychosocial factors. Ninety-five participants in the comprehensive multidisciplinary treatment group and the standard medical intervention control group were surveyed about various psychosocial factors using Axis II of the West Haven - Yale Multidimensional Pain Inventory (MPI), pre- to post-treatment. It was hypothesized that post-treatment levels would be significantly lower than pre-treatment levels for all five psychosocial variables. Additionally, gender and ethnicity variables were examined. Based on preliminary analyses indicating pre-treatment differences between the experimental and control group, five 2 x 2 x 3 analyses of covariances (ANCOVAs) were used to examine the above hypotheses. Results indicated significant differences between the treatment conditions on measures of control, with the comprehensive group feeling more in control than the standard group at post-treatment. No other significant main effects for treatment condition were found on the measures of pain severity, interference with daily activities, negative mood, or social support. However, a significant gender main effect was found for social support at post-treatment, with females reporting more social support than males. A significant gender x ethnicity interaction was also found for post-treatment control, …