Personality traits in patients with idiopathic pain disorder

ABSTRACT— In the present study, patients with idiopathic pain syndromes have been compared to healthy volunteers, patients with neurogenic pain syndromes and depressed patients as concerns stable personality traits. The personality traits were assessed by means of the Karolinska Scales of Personality (KSP). Patients with idiopathic pain syndromes were found to have high scores on scales measuring Muscular tension, Social desirability, Psychasthenia and Socialization. They had also high scores on the Inhibition of aggression factor. They had low scores on Impulsivity, Monotony avoidance, Indirect aggression, Verbal aggression and Suspicion. As compared to depressed patients, the pain patients were much more controlled, with higher scores on Socialization and Social desirability scales and like depressed patients with a tendency to inhibit aggression. Thus, as compared to depressed patients, the pain patients had less open anxiety but the same degree of muscular tension.

[1]  M. Eisemann,et al.  Pain as a symptom in depressive disorders. I. Relationship to diagnostic subgroup and depressive symptomatology , 1983, Pain.

[2]  T. Roth,et al.  Biological Markers for Depression in Chronic Pain , 1982, The Journal of nervous and mental disease.

[3]  R. Spitzer,et al.  Idiopathic Pain Disorder: A Critique of Pain‐Prone Disorder and a Proposal for a Revision of the DSM‐III Category Psychogenic Pain Disorder , 1982, The Journal of nervous and mental disease.

[4]  D. Blumer,et al.  Chronic Pain as a Variant of Depressive Disease The Pain‐Prone Disorder , 1982, The Journal of nervous and mental disease.

[5]  N. Ward,et al.  The effectiveness of tricyclic antidepressants in the treatment of coexisting pain and depression , 1979, Pain.

[6]  D. Schalling,et al.  On the Validity of the California Psychological Inventory Socialization Scale: A Multivariate Approach. , 1974 .

[7]  Alfred Torrie,et al.  The Psychology of Aggression , 1962, Mental Health.

[8]  M. Eisemann,et al.  Personality traits in former depressed patients and in healthy subjects without past history of depression. , 1984, Psychopathology.

[9]  M. Eisemann,et al.  Variations in self-assessment of personality characteristics in depressed patients, with special reference to aspects of aggression. , 1979, Psychiatria clinica.

[10]  D. Zerssen.  5 – Premorbid personality and affective psychoses , 1977 .

[11]  L. Knorring.  The experience of pain in patients with depressive disorders : a clinical and experimental study , 1975 .