Chronic pain is associated with depression and self-restraint behavior in Japanese people.

Research Objectives: To assess the psychological characteristics of Japanese with chronic pain.

Design: Cross-sectional study. Spearman correlations were used to analyze data.

Setting: Ambulatory care.

Participants: Patients using rehabilitation services in Sapporo and Hakodate (N=100).

Interventions: Not applicable.

Main Outcome Measures: Chronic pain is associated with psychological disorders. Though the prevalence of chronic pain as well as mental diseases in Japan is different from other countries, the psychological characteristics of Japanese with chronic pain has not been revealed in detail. We assessed it by using the pain Numerical Rating Scale (NRS) and the psychometric evaluation of Structures Association Technique (SAT). We chose this evaluation because this method is appropriate to assess the Japanese psychological trait. The protocols were approved by the Sapporo Medical University Ethics Committee (code: 3-1-19).

Results: We evaluated NRS and seven scales of SAT, the depression scale, the self-restraint behavior scale, the self-denial scale, the self-worth scale, the interpersonal dependent behavioral trait scale, the anxiety tendency scale, and the PTSS scale. The NRS was significantly correlated with the depression scale (r= 0.3255, p= 0.0010) and the self-restraint behavior scale (r= 0.3213, p= 0.0011). There were no significant associations with other scales.

Conclusions: These results indicate that the degree of chronic pain is not only associated with depression, but also self-restraint behavior in Japanese people.

Author(s) Disclosures: The authors declare no conflicts.