Grant: Operating Grant

Chronic pain is a complex, prevalent, and costly health condition. Between 9 and 29 percent of Canadian adults live with chronic pain. Attachment Theory is a developmental, interpersonal framework that has considerable potential to further understanding of chronic pain-related treatment and disability. This theory posits that early interactions with primary caregivers, especially those related to affect regulation and coping with distress, form the basis of enduring interpersonal patterns. Despite a paucity of research on adult attachment and chronic pain, recent reviews published in prestigious academic journals have called for additional empirical work in this area. The proposed research addresses this call through a number of related lines of inquiry. The prevalence of adult attachment styles in individuals with chronic pain remains largely unknown and will be estimated. Associations among adult attachment styles and key pain-related and psychological variables (e.g., mood, fears, and coping) will be examined. Associations among adult attachment dimensions and treatment-related variables and outcomes (e.g., adherence, and health care utilization) will be evaluated longitudinally. Finally, the proposed research will examine associations among patients' and significant others' attachment dimensions. The proposed research will be conducted in an interdisciplinary, outpatient chronic pain management program at a rehabilitation hospital. The proposed project is timely, clinically-relevant, theoretically-driven, and methodologically feasible. It will employ a longitudinal design in which data are collected at four time-points. The proposed research has the potential to increase understanding of the role of interpersonal variables in the experience of chronic pain and chronic pain treatment. Given the paucity of research in this area, the proposed research has the potential to make unique, novel contributions to the scientific literature.