Health anxiety moderates the effects of distraction versus attention to pain

Little is known about the relationship between health anxiety and chronic p ain. The present study explored whether individual differences in health an xiety would influence the response of chronic pain patients to physical the rapy. Furthermore, the interaction of health anxiety with coping strategy u sage (distraction versus attention) was studied. Participants were 81 chron ic pain patients who were interviewed and completed measures of pain, anxie ty and cognition following an active physiotherapy session in which they ei ther: (1) attended to physical sensations; (2) distracted from physical sen sations or (3) completed the session as usual. Health anxious, compared to non-health anxious, individuals worried more about their health and injury during the session and attended to and catastrophically misinterpreted sens ations more frequently. A complex interaction between health anxiety and co ping strategy emerged. Among health anxious patients, attention to sensatio ns resulted in lower anxiety and pain than did distraction. It appears as t hough attention had a short-term anxiety reducing effect for health anxious patients. Among non-health anxious patients, attention resulted in greater worry about health than distraction. Clinical and theoretical implications are discussed. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.