• Rubén Nieto, Jordi Miró, Anna Huguet, and Carmina Saldaña.
• PSINET research group, Internet Interdisciplinary Institute, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain. rnietol@uoc.edu
• Disabil Rehabil. 2011 Jan 1;33(5):389-98.

PurposeThe aim is to study how pain coping strategies and catastrophising are related to disability and depression in patients with whiplash-associated disorders (WAD). Specifically, we wanted to test if they are independent predictive variables, after controlling for pain severity, sociodemographic and crash-related variables.MethodsA convenience sample of 147 patients with WAD of less than 3 months of duration was recruited. They were requested to complete the Pain Catastrophising Scale, the two-item version of the Chronic Pain Coping Inventory and to report sociodemographic and crash-related information, pain intensity, disability and depression.ResultsAlthough several pain coping strategies were related with disability in univariate analyses, only asking for assistance was a marginally significant predictive variable in a multiple regression analysis after controlling for catastrophising. Catastrophising was a significant predictive variable after controlling for pain coping strategies. With depression as the outcome, resting and task persistence were the only pain coping strategies which were related in univariate analyses. However, none of them were predictive variables after controlling for catastrophising. Again, catastrophising was a significant predictive variable after controlling for pain coping strategies.ConclusionsOur results show that catastrophising about pain is more important than pain coping strategies in patients with WAD of a short duration. These results can contribute to the conceptual distinction between pain coping strategies and catastrophising.

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