REMEDIATION OF PAIN-RELATED MEMORY BIAS AS A RESULT OF RECOVERY FROM CHRONIC PAIN

Cognitive biases are increasingly implicated as vulnerability factors in emotional and physical disorders. This issue is examined here in ch ronic pain sufferers using a recall memory paradigm. A sample of chron ic pelvic pain patients undergoing hysterectomy and oophorectomy were assessed prior to the intervention, 8 weeks post-surgery, and again 6 months post-surgery. On each occasion patients were aurally presented four mixed lists of sensory, affective, neutral and gardening words, m atched for frequency and length. No difference in the recall of neutra l and gardening words was found, suggesting that selective memory for pain-related information cannot be attributed to superior recall of wo rds belonging to a common semantic category. A clear pattern of more p ain-related words being remembered before surgery, but better recall o f non-pain-related words 6 months post-surgery when pain intensity rat ings are significantly reduced, was evidenced. These results suggest t hat selective memory for pain-related words is more likely to be a sec ondary consequence of the long term experience of pain than a stable, enduring cognitive vulnerability factor.