Acupuncture and chronic pain mechanisms: the moderating effects of affect, personality, and stress on response to treatment.

The present study, part of a larger project investigating neurophysiological and psychosocial factors affecting response to acupuncture for chronic pain, compares responders and non-responders to acupuncture on a series of variables assessing personality, affect and stress. Subjects were 40 patients with pain beneath the waist level longer than 6 months duration selected from the roles of the Multidisciplinary Pain Clinic. Responders, defined as 50% or more reduction in pain estimate for greater than two weeks, were found to be less depressed, less passive and overly conventional, have shorter duration of pain, endorse less frequent exposure to stressors, and have less serious non pain-related illnesses. The findings are viewed as linking the intractability of pain states with psychosocial factors which may interfere with response to somatic modes of therapy or which may interfere via alterations of tonic neurohumoral factors. The study also in seen as supporting the importance of considering psychological variables in evaluating patients for pain treatment strategies and suggests inclusion of such variables in investigating response to other modalities of treatment for chronic pain.