Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association
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Controlled Clinical Trial
Perceived racial discrimination, but not mistrust of medical researchers, predicts the heat pain tolerance of African Americans with symptomatic knee osteoarthritis.
Studies have shown that perceived racial discrimination is a significant predictor of clinical pain severity among African Americans. It remains unknown whether perceived racial discrimination also alters the nociceptive processing of painful stimuli, which, in turn, could influence clinical pain severity. This study examined associations between perceived racial discrimination and responses to noxious thermal stimuli among African Americans and non-Hispanic Whites. Mistrust of medical researchers was also assessed given its potential to affect responses to the noxious stimuli. ⋯ These results lend support to the idea that perceived racial discrimination may influence the clinical pain severity of African Americans via the nociceptive processing of painful stimuli.
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Several chronic pain conditions are more prevalent in Native Americans than in any other group in the United States; however, little has been done to identify factors contributing to this disparity. The study presented here was designed to examine whether there were pain processing differences in Native Americans relative to non-Hispanic White controls. ⋯ Findings suggest Native Americans have dampened pain and pain signaling, perhaps due to overactivation of descending pain inhibition mechanisms. Given research indicating that other ethnic groups at risk for chronic pain (e.g., African Americans) show enhanced pain and enhanced central sensitization on experimental pain measures, chronic pain risk could be different for Native Americans, thus emphasizing the need for different treatment interventions.