The spouse plays a fundamental role in day-to-day functioning and long-term
well-being of the patient with chronic pain. Although spouses may respond
differently to pain demonstrations, no study has examined patterns of perce
ived spouse responsiveness to chronic pain behavior. Yet perceived patterns
of response to chronic pain may explain variability in pain behavior in th
e literature because studied samples may be drawn from any one subgroup. Th
e purposes of this study were to run an exploratory cluster analysis to ide
ntify naturally occurring spouse response subgroups by using section 2 of t
he Multidimensional Pain Inventory and to examine pain-relevant variables b
etween subgroups. It was hypothesized that subgroups would be identified an
d that they would differ on pain-relevant variables. Participants were 774
married pain patients from 2 University of Florida-affiliated pain clinics,
69% of whom experienced chronic low back pain. A hierarchical cluster anal
ysis identified 3 subgroups that were labeled positively attentive, negativ
ely attentive, and inattentive. A discriminant analysis yielded 2 significa
nt discriminant functions that correctly classified 71.1% of subgroup membe
rship. The support variable best differentiated between the positively and
negatively attentive subgroups, whereas interference best distinguished bet
ween the negatively attentive and inattentive subgroups. Results suggest th
e profiles have conceptual and clinical validity, with the negatively and p
ositively attentive subgroups exhibiting the poorest adjustment to pain. A
controlled study is needed to determine the direction of causality. (C) 200
1 by the American Pain Society.