A secondary goal was to assess the relationship between a set of contextual factors associated with IBS (age, gender, trait anxiety) and the four pain stages. Our goal was to extend the scope of the sequential model and test its fundamental tenets using structural equation modeling (SEM) with data obtained from 168 Rome II diagnosed IBS patients (19% male, 81% female). Although prior research with both healthy individuals and somatic pain patients supports the model in general, its applicability to IBS is unclear. Price's pain processing model was used to delineate four a priori sequentially related stages (pain sensation intensity, immediate pain unpleasantness, long-term suffering, and pain-related behavior). N2 - Pain, the cardinal feature of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), is a multidimensional phenomenon with sensory and affective dimensions. Preparation of this paper was supported in part by National Institutes of Health Grant DK-54211 and an Interdisciplinary Research and Creative Activities Fund grant through the University at Buffalo, SUNY. T2 - A structural equation modeling analysis T1 - Testing the sequential model of pain processing in irritable bowel syndrome These data are generally supportive of a four-stage pain processing model.", Gender tended to be more strongly associated with more distal pain stages (e.g., pain affect) vis-vis its effects on pain sensation. Age was related to pain sensation and illness behaviors but not pain affect. The effect of anxiety on illness behavior was mediated by suffering, while psychopathology directly influenced pain sensation and pain unpleasantness but not later stages.
However, contrary to a model with strictly successive stages, pain sensation had independent effects on illness behaviors over and above pain affect. Results were consistent with a successive order of pain processing such that the pain sensation directly impacts pain unpleasantness, which, in turn, leads to suffering and illness behaviors. These data are generally supportive of a four-stage pain processing model.Ībstract = "Pain, the cardinal feature of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), is a multidimensional phenomenon with sensory and affective dimensions. Gender tended to be more strongly associated with more distal pain stages (e.g., pain affect) vis-à-vis its effects on pain sensation.
Pain, the cardinal feature of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), is a multidimensional phenomenon with sensory and affective dimensions.