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Dispositional Mindfulness and Acute Heat Pain: Comparing Stimulus-Evoked Pain With Summary Pain Assessment.

Psychosomatic medicine
January 1, 1970
Dominik Mischkowski et al. (6 authors)
Comparative StudyJournal ArticleResearch Support, N.I.H., IntramuralHuman Study
Study Details

Study Goal

The researchers aimed to determine whether dispositional mindfulness is associated with reduced pain sensitivity, comparing trial-by-trial pain assessments with overall summary ratings.

Results Summary

Dispositional mindfulness was linked to reduced pain on the McGill Pain Questionnaire's sensory and affective dimensions but showed no significant association with experimental thermal pain assessments like threshold, tolerance, or skin conductance response.

Population

131 healthy adult volunteers (mean age 29.09 years, 55.7% female).

Effective Dosage

Not specified

Duration

Not specified

Interactions

None mentioned

Extracted Claims (4)
InterventionDirectionEndpointPopulationDosageImpactClaim #
dispositional mindfulness
decrease
MPQ sensory dimension
healthy adult volunteers
B = -0.18, SE = 0.05, 95% confidence interval = -0.29 to -0.07, t = -3.28, p = .001
associated with decreased pain
#1
dispositional mindfulness
decrease
MPQ affective dimension
healthy adult volunteers
B = -0.11, SE = 0.03, 95% confidence interval = -0.18 to -0.05, t = -3.32, p = .001
associated with decreased pain
#2
dispositional mindfulness
no change
experimental thermal pain assessments
healthy adult volunteers
p values ≥ .29
not associated with
#3
dispositional mindfulness
decrease
acute thermal pain
healthy adult volunteers
-
mitigated
#4
Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Dispositional mindfulness is associated with reduced pain in clinical and experimental settings. However, researchers have neglected the type of pain assessment, as dispositional mindfulness may have unique benefits for reduced pain sensitivity when relying on summary pain assessments, in contrast to assessing the pain of each noxious stimulus. Here, we test the association between dispositional mindfulness and pain using both trial-by-trial pain assessments and overall summary ratings after acute pain tasks. METHODS: One hundred thirty-one healthy adult volunteers (mean age = 29.09 [8.00] years, 55.7% female) underwent two experimental thermal pain paradigms. We tested whether dispositional mindfulness measured with the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale was related to a) heat-evoked pain sensitivity, as measured by pain threshold, pain tolerance, average pain, trial-by-trial ratings, and heat-evoked skin conductance response, and b) summary judgments of sensory and affective pain assessed using the McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ). RESULTS: Mindful Attention Awareness Scale ratings were associated with decreased pain on the MPQ sensory (B = -0.18, SE = 0.05, 95% confidence interval = -0.29 to -0.07, t = -3.28, p = .001) and affective (B = -0.11, SE = 0.03, 95% confidence interval = -0.18 to -0.05, t = -3.32, p = .001) dimensions but not with experimental thermal pain assessments, including threshold, tolerance, heat-evoked pain, or skin conductance response (p values ≥ .29). CONCLUSIONS: In this study, dispositional mindfulness mitigated acute thermal pain only when pain was assessed using the MPQ. These findings may reflect differences in immediate versus retrospective judgments or the type of pain assessed by each measure. Future research should examine regulation processes that may explain these differential analgesic benefits, such as attention, rumination, or reappraisal.

Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)
Acute PainAdultFemaleHot TemperatureHumansMaleMindfulnessPain MeasurementRetrospective Studies
Study Links
Quality Scores
SafetyNot Assessed
Efficacy70/10
Quality80/10
Citation Metrics
Total Citations5
Citations/Year1.3
Relative Citation Ratio0.54
NIH Percentile29%
Research Impact Scores
APT Score0.50
Weight Score1.57
Normalized Score0.64
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