Role of pain and its associated cognitive related variables in the patients with rheumatoid arthritis

In recent decades there had been considerable progress in the research works on chronic pain، perhaps as a consequence of costs and challenges associated with this problem. The aim of this study was to compare rheumatoid arthritis patients and healthy individuals in regard to fear of pain، pain catastrophizing and catastrophic cognition. In this study we selected 100 patients with rheumatoid arthritis and 100 healthy individuals from a public hospital using census sampling method. After informed consent، demographic variables such as age، sex، level of education، duration of illness were recorded for every subject. We used three questionnaires of fear of pain (FPQ)، catastrophic cognition (CCQ) and scale of pain catastrophizing (PCS) in this study. Multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA) showed significant differences between the two groups in regard to the three cognitive variables of «fear of pain»، «catastrophic cognition» and «pain catastrophizing» (P<0. 05). These results suggested that fear of pain; catastrophic cognition and pain catastrophizing were important cognitive factors contributing to aggravation of pain in the patients with rheumatoid arthritis. The results of the current study are consistent with basic assumptions of cognitive–affective model which emphasizes the importance of the ‘pain experience’ as potential modulators of the pain–cognition relationship.