The Role of Self-Efficacy in Predicting Catastrophic Depression in Patients with Chronic Pain

Introduction: Although the relation between cognitive factors and depression in chronic pain patients has been documented before, whether this relation retains after controlling for intervening variables is not still fully investigated. Therefore, this article aims to study the relation between the pain catastrophizing and self-efficacy factors and the depression after taking out the effects of pain intensity and suspending the usual daily tasks due to pain.
Method: Present research is a cross-sectional and correlational study, in which 245 chronic pain patients samples are selected by the accessible sampling method within 6 months intervals from 7 pain centers in Tehran. The participants complete a number of questionnaires including demographic, pain intensity, depression, self-efficacy, and catastrophizing scales. Collected data are analyzed using Pearson correlation and multiple hierarchical regressions.
Results: There are significant relations amongst self-efficacy and catastrophizing with pain intensity, depression, and suspending the usual daily tasks because of pain (P 0.01). In the regression analysis, the self-efficacy and catastrophizing predict significant proportion of variance of the depression scale over and above the effects of pain intensity and suspending tasks.
Conclusion: Intense pain, less self-efficacy and frequent catastrophizing beliefs predict depression. Therefore, in addition to the pain reduction interventions, cognitive strategies based on maximizing self-efficacy and minimizing catastrophizing beliefs could prevent depression in chronic pain patients constructively.