| dc.contributor.author | Unruh, Anita Mary. | en_US |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2014-10-21T12:38:28Z | |
| dc.date.available | 1996 | |
| dc.date.issued | 1996 | en_US |
| dc.identifier.other | AAINN16031 | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10222/55161 | |
| dc.description | This study was a cross-sectional community telephone survey examining the relationships between gender, specific characteristics of pain, the threat or challenge appraisal of a troublesome pain, and the impact of appraisal on coping strategies. The sampling frame consisted of 1,430 households, randomly selected from the Halifax-Dartmouth-Bedford community. Of the 390 respondents who reported a pain in the two weeks preceding the interview, 309 respondents (157 women, 152 men) agreed to participate in the study (79% response rate). Fifty-three percent of respondents had pain at the time of the interview. | en_US |
| dc.description | For women and men, the most important impact on whether pain was appraised as a threat was the extent to which pain interfered with activities and responsibilities, and how upset the respondent was about the pain. These two aspects of pain accounted for 48% of the variance in threat appraisal for women, and 37% of the variance for men. For women, threat appraisal increased significantly more quickly as the overall interference of the pain increased. There was no gender difference in emotional upset due to pain, or on the impact of emotional upset on threat appraisal. | en_US |
| dc.description | Threat appraisal had a stronger impact than did challenge appraisal on the way respondents coped with their pain. Threat appraisal was associated with information-seeking, seeking social support, problem-solving about the pain, as well as more emotive coping behaviours considered as externalizing (e.g. swearing, arguing, yelling), internalizing/castrophizing (e.g. thinking pain would never stop), and indirect help-seeking (e.g. crying, groaning, asking for help). Challenge appraisals of pain were low. Respondents who reported higher challenge appraisals used more behavioural and cognitive distraction strategies, and more positive self-statements. Women were more likely than men to seek health care in response to increasing threat appraisals of pain. However, threat appraisal and gender of the respondent predicted only a small proportion of visits to a health professional for pain. | en_US |
| dc.description | Although women tend to receive more attention for emotional aspects of their pain experiences, this study demonstrated that overall interference of pain on daily life was a more important factor in the threat appraisal of pain for women and men. Greater attention should be given in health care practice to the impact of overall interference of pain on the roles and responsibilities of daily life and its relationship to the threat appraisal of pain. Appraisal of pain may be an important determinant of overall psychological adjustment for women and men who experience persistent pains in their lives. | en_US |
| dc.description | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Dalhousie University (Canada), 1996. | en_US |
| dc.language | eng | en_US |
| dc.publisher | Dalhousie University | en_US |
| dc.publisher | | en_US |
| dc.subject | Psychology, Clinical. | en_US |
| dc.title | The influence of gender on appraisal of pain and pain coping strategies. | en_US |
| dc.type | text | en_US |
| dc.contributor.degree | Ph.D. | en_US |
