Dv. Nelson et Dm. Novy, SELF-REPORT DIFFERENTIATION OF ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION IN CHRONIC PAIN, Journal of personality assessment, 69(2), 1997, pp. 392-407
The psychometric distinctiveness of self-reported anxiety and depressi
on in patients with chronic pain was investigated. The item-level resp
onses of 220 patients with heterogeneous pain conditions from the Beck
Depression Inventory and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory State-Anxiety
scale were submitted to common factor analysis. Three first-order fact
ors were identified: depression, anxiety-absent, and anxiety-present.
One second-order factor of negative affect was also identified. Correl
ations of first-order factor scores with other psychometric measures s
uggested only minor distinctiveness. The findings indicated that it is
possible to distinguish anxiety and depression psychometrically in pa
tients with chronic pain but suggested that negative affect may be the
primary underlying construct of the affective experience of these pat
ients.