The Clinical journal of pain
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Neuropathic pain (NeP) is a prevalent, disabling, multidimensional condition with significant morbidity; however, there appears to be a variable approach in the use of outcome measures in NeP trials. A search of systematic reviews of interventional randomized-controlled trials for NeP was undertaken to investigate the range and types of outcome measures used to determine treatment effects. ⋯ These results demonstrate that measures of pain are predominantly used in trials of NeP conditions and highlight the scant usage of functional outcome measures. The lack of standardization for the diagnostic criteria in NeP trials is also an issue that needs to be considered for future research and guideline development.
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This narrative review summarizes and integrates the available literature on positive affect (PA) and pain to: (1) provide a brief overview of PA and summarize the key findings that have emerged in the study of PA and pain; (2) provide a theoretical foundation from which to understand how PA operates in the context of chronic pain (CP); and (3) highlight how the prevailing psychosocial treatments for CP address PA in the therapeutic context, and offer suggestions for how future treatment development research can maximize the benefit of PA for patients with CP. ⋯ We offer an "upward spiral" model of PA, resilience and pain self-management, which makes specific predictions that PA will buffer maladaptive cognitive and affective responses to pain, and promote active engagement in valued goals that enhance CP self-management.
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Many patients with low back pain (LBP) are treated in a similar manner as if they were a homogenous group. However, scientific evidence is available that pain is a complex perceptual experience influenced by a wide range of genetic, psychological, and activity-related factors. The leading question for clinical practice should be what works for whom. ⋯ For future research and treatment it might be challenging to develop theoretical frameworks combining different subgrouping classifications. On the basis of this framework, tailoring treatments more specifically to the patient needs may result in improvements in treatment programs for patients with LBP.
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Behavioral factors such as avoidance and persistence have received massive theoretical and empirical attention in the attempts to explain chronic pain and disability. The determinants of these pain behaviors remain, however, poorly understood. We propose a self-regulation perspective to increase our understanding of pain-related avoidance and persistence. ⋯ Several implications and challenges arising from this review are discussed. In particular, a self-regulation perspective does not consider avoidance and persistence behavior to be intrinsically adaptive or maladaptive, but argues that their effects on disability and well-being rather depend on the goals underlying these behaviors. Such view would require a shift in how avoidance and persistence behavior are assessed and approached in clinical interventions.