Dispositional Mindfulness and Acute Heat Pain: Comparing Stimulus-Evoked Pain With Summary Pain Assessment.
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
| Intervention | Direction | Endpoint | Population | Dosage | Impact | Claim # |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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 |
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.