Publication
Title
Lower resting state heart rate variability relates to high pain catastrophizing in patients with chronic whiplash-associated disorders and healthy controls
Author
Abstract
Vagally mediated heart rate variability (vmHRV) is widely respected as a psychophysiological measure of emotion regulation capacity and serves as a readily available index of executive brain areas that exert an inhibitory influence on subcortical structures. Pain catastro-phizing (PC) is conceptualized as the tendency to misinterpret and exaggerate pain-related situations that may be threatening. Chronic pain patients show lower vmHRV and higher PC. Previously, no study has investigated the association of PC and vmHRV. We examined the association of PC and vmHRV in a sample of patients with chronic whiplash-associated disorders (WAD, n = 30) and healthy controls (n = 31). Patients with WAD showed lower vmHRV, indexed by high-frequency HRV (effect size, Cohen's d = 0.442), and greater PC (d = 0.815). Zero-order and partial correlations controlling for age and sex revealed that vmHRV and PC are inversely related. The results provide evidence for a psychophysiological mechanism underlying PC, in particular in chronic pain patients.
Language
English
Source (journal)
Pain practice. - Place of publication unknown
Publication
Place of publication unknown : 2016
ISSN
1530-7085
DOI
10.1111/PAPR.12399
Volume/pages
16 :8 (2016) , p. 1048-1053
ISI
000393168700012
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (publisher's version - intranet only)
UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Publication type
Subject
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 16.03.2017
Last edited 09.10.2023
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