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First Study to Link Age, Attachment Style, and Chronic Pain Together

How and why pain becomes a chronic problem remains a mystery. Social research has been done to pinpoint factors that contribute to this transition. In this study, researchers focus on the role of attachment anxiety on the patient's pain experience.

Attachment anxiety describes the emotions and actions of someone who has trouble feeling comfortable with closeness in a relationship. The pattern of attachment anxiety may be high or low, secure or insecure. A person in chronic pain with insecure attachment may suffer from greater distress and depression.

In fact this study showed patients with insecure patterns of attachment also had lower pain thresholds and pain tolerance. They also had higher levels of pain intensity with compared with secure subjects.

A group of 58 healthy adults ages 21 to 69 years old were recruited for this study. Each one was tested for stress, depression, and anxiety. A separate test measured attachment styles. One final test of coping was carried out. Subjects rated how much control they thought they would have over pain. Tests were scored and each person's type of attachment style was determined.

During the experiment each subject placed his or her entire forearm into a bath of cold water. Once the test started the amount of time in the cold bath was recorded with a stopwatch. How long after the start of the bath that the subject felt pain was also recorded.

The results showed that attachment anxiety went hand in hand with lower pain thresholds. The subject felt more pain sooner than the other people. They also found this group had more stress and depression. They didn't see themselves as having control over pain. On the other hand the secure attachment group had fewer cases of depression. They felt they had more control over pain intensity.

One other important finding from this study was the link between age and pain intensity. It seems older, more secure adults have less pain compared to younger adults. The authors conclude by saying that the role of attachment may be a place to start when looking to prevent acute pain from progressing to chronic pain.

References: Pamela J. Meredith, et al. The Relationship of Adult Attachment to Emotion, Catastrophizing, Control, Threshold, and Tolerance in Experimentally-Induced Pain. In Pain. January 2006. Vol. 120. Issues 1-2. Pp. 44-52.

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