A PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF SPOUSE SOLICITOUSNESS TOWARDS PAIN BEHAVIORS, SPOUSE INTERACTION, AND PAIN PERCEPTION

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship of marital interaction and spouse solicitousness to the perception of acute pain stimuli and psychophysiological reactivity. Seventeen chronic back pa in patients and fifteen matched healthy controls and their significant others participated in two cold pressor tests (one in the presence, o ne in the absence of the spouse) and both a neutral and a conflictual verbal interaction. Higher levels of solicitousness of the spouses wer e related to higher pain perception in the spouse present condition fo r the patients only. Lumbar muscular reactivity was generally elevated for the patients during the conflictual interaction. The interaction of the patients' spouses was characterized by more acceptance and agre ement than that of the healthy controls' spouses; patients with highly solicitous spouses showed less direct expression than those with low solicitous spouses. These data suggest that spouse solicitousness is a ssociated with heightened pain perception in chronic pain patients, mu scular reactivity seems to be related to patient status only.