Coping with chronic musculoskeletal pain in Portugal and in the United States: a cross-cultural study

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the associations between coping and adjustment to chronic pain in a sample of patients from Portugal and to discuss the findings with respect to published findings from two studies using patients from the United States.

Design: Two brief measures of pain coping were translated and administered with measures of physical and psychological functioning to a sample of Portuguese patients. Analyses examined the associations among the study variables and compared the results with published data from two patient samples from the United States.

Participants: One hundred seventeen individuals with chronic musculoskeletal pain.

Outcome measures: Portuguese translations of brief versions of the Coping Strategies Questionnaire and Chronic Pain Coping Inventory and criterion measures of pain intensity, pain interference, and depression.

Results: Statistically significant positive associations were found between measures of patient dysfunction and catastrophizing, praying/hoping, guarding, asking for assistance, and support seeking; and negative associations were found between the criterion measures and ignoring sensations, coping self-statements, and increasing behavioral activities. Mean differences between the Portuguese and US samples in the coping scales were found for nine of the 15 coping scales.

Conclusions: The results support the reliability and validity of the translated Coping Strategies Questionnaire and Chronic Pain Coping Inventory and also indicate a number of similarities, but also some interesting differences, in the findings from the Portuguese vs US samples, suggesting that there may be cultural differences in how people cope with pain.