COGNITIVE-FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH FACIAL-PAIN

ost well-accepted etiological models of facial pain (e.g., temporomand ibular disorders and headache) implicate emotional distress as an impo rtant factor in the development and maintenance of pain. Data exists t o support the notion that some facial pain sufferers are more emotiona lly distressed than no pain controls. However, many of these dependent measures of emotional distress are either lengthy assessment batterie s, lack clear cut psychotherapeutic treatment implications, or focus e xclusively on pain related sequela. As cognitive-behavioral interventi ons become more integrated into the treatment of chronic pain conditio ns, including various facial pain conditions, it becomes more imperati ve that the tools used to assess psychological functioning provide the clinician with specific cognitive/behavioral targets for change. The purpose of this study was to assess the degree to which symptomatic tr eatment seeking facial pain sufferers (N = 25), symptomatic non-treatm ent seeking facial pain sufferers (N = 48), and healthy pain-free cont rols (N = 70) differed on the Rational Beliefs Inventory (RBI). The RB I is a reliable, valid questionnaire assessing rational beliefs that a re operationalized within a Rational Emotive Therapy (RET) framework. RET is a cognitive-behavioral treatment paradigm that focuses on how a n individual's maladaptive cognitive errors or distortions exacerbate emotional distress, Group differences were assessed using a oneway Ana lysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) with the total RBI score serving as the d ependent measure, and a Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) using individual RBI belief subscales as dependent measures. These res ults indicated that groups differed significantly on the total score a nd several of the individual belief subscales. These findings indicate d that facial pain sufferers generally hold maladaptive beliefs that m ay be of clinical significance for cognitive/behavioral treatment appr oaches.