ANGER MANAGEMENT STYLE AND THE PREDICTION OF TREATMENT OUTCOME AMONG MALE AND FEMALE CHRONIC PAIN PATIENTS

Anger is a prominent emotion experienced by chronic pain patients. Ane cdotes suggest that anger predicts poor outcome following multidiscipl inary pain programs, but no empirical evidence documents this link. We expected that patient anger expression or suppression would predict p oor outcome following a pain program and that gender differences would emerge. Pre- to posttreatment measures of lifting capacity, walking e ndurance, depression, pain severity and activity level were collected from 101 chronic pain patients. An 'anger expression x gender' interac tion was found such that anger expression among males was correlated n egatively with lifting capacity improvements. 'Anger suppression x gen der' interactions emerged such that anger suppression among males was correlated negatively with improvements in depression and general acti vities. These effects remained significant after controlling for trait anger. Thus, how anger is managed may exert unique influence on outco mes apart from the effects of mere anger proneness, at least among mal e pain patients. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.