• R A Sansone, D A Watts, and M W Wiederman.
• Department of Psychiatry and Internal Medicine, Wright State University School of Medicine, Dayton, OH 45417, USA, Department Psychiatry Education, Kettering Medical Center, Kettering, OH 45429, USA, Randy.sansone@khnetwork.org.
• Occup Med (Lond). 2014 Jun 1;64(4):294-6.

BackgroundStudies examining pain catastrophizing and employment have had mixed findings. No study of pain catastrophizing has examined its relationship to lifetime employment status in a general clinical population.AimsTo examine pain catastrophizing in relationship to lifetime employment functioning in a sample of US primary care patients (rather than injured workers).MethodsA cross-sectional anonymous self-report survey of consecutive adults in a US internal medicine outpatient clinic. We assessed pain catastrophizing using the Pain Catastrophizing Scale and employment histories using a four-item author-developed measure.ResultsThere were 239 participants and an initial participation rate of 70%. While pain catastrophizing was not related to the number of different full-time jobs held or the percentage of time employed in adulthood, pain catastrophizing was statistically significantly associated with ever having been paid 'under the table' [F(1,236) = 27.89, P < 0.001] and ever having been fired from a job [F(1,237) = 50.78, P < 0.001], as well as with not getting along with fellow employees [F(1,60) = 7.48, P < 0.01].ConclusionsIn this clinical sample, pain catastrophizing demonstrated varying relationships with different aspects of lifetime employment, rather than exerting an overall global effect on employment.© The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Occupational Medicine. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

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