The Clinical neuropsychologist
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Pain-related fear is related to self-reported avoidance of physical activities that might induce pain (kinesiophobia), as well as diminished physical performance in non-headache chronic pain. A related concept, "cogniphobia," has been proposed by others, which suggests that individuals high in headache-related fear will avoid cognitive tasks (by putting forth less effort) in an attempt to minimize the risk of bringing on or exacerbating existing headache symptoms. ⋯ Latent variable analysis of the cogniphobia measure revealed a component focused on fear of headache pain and avoidance of behaviors that would induce pain, which was related to sustained attention performance, performance on a symptom validity measure, and pressure pain threshold on the head, consistent with existing kinesiophobia research in non-headache pain. Results have implications for neuropsychological assessment in headache; pain-related fear may be related to diminished effort on neuropsychological tasks.