The relationship of arthritis self-efficacy to daily pain, daily mood, anddaily pain coping in rheumatoid arthritis patients

There is an increasing awareness in the medical community that psychosocial variables such as beliefs in self-efficacy are important determinants of t reatment outcome. However, before measures of self-efficacy are widely inco rporated into clinical practice, there needs to be a better understanding o f how they relate to daily pain, mood and coping. In the present study 128 rheumatoid arthritis patients completed diaries for 30 days in which they p rovided daily ratings of joins pain, negative and positive mood, the use of pain coping strategies, and coping efficacy. The patients then participate d in an evaluation session during which measures of self-efficacy (the Arth ritis Self Efficacy Scale (ASES)), demographic variables, and medical statu s were collected. A series of hierarchical regression analyses was conducte d to determine the degree to which self-efficacy measures collected at the time of the evaluation session were related to daily diary measures collect ed during the 30 preceding days. The results revealed that self-efficacy wa s significantly related to daily ratings of pain, mood, coping and coping e fficacy. Interestingly, the findings regarding self-efficacy were obtained even after taking into account the effects of important demographic and med ical status variables. Taken together, these results suggest that self-effi cacy ratings collected from arthritis patients at the time of an evaluation session may well be related to recent experiences of daily pain and mood, as well as the daily use and perceived effectiveness of pain coping strateg ies. (C) 1999 international Association for the Study of Pain. Published by Elsevier Science B.V.