Abstract

The purpose of the study was to examine the effects of mindfulness and pain acceptance on pain and depression of chronic pain patients and to test moderating roles of mindfulness and pain acceptance in the relationship between catastrophizing and pain and in the relationship between catastrophizing and depression. Present Pain Intensity, Visual Analogue Scale, Cognitive and Affective Mindfulness Scale-Revised, Chronic Pain Acceptance Questionnaire, Pain Catastrophizing Scale, and Beck Depression Inventory were administered to a sample of 181 chronic pain patients. Results indicated that higher levels of pain acceptance were associated with lower levels of depression and pain and higher levels of mindfulness were associated with lower levels of depression, while the relation between mindfulness and pain was not significant. The meaningful moderating effect of pain acceptance in the relationship between catastrophizing and depression has been found, while, the same effect of those on pain was not verified. Mindfulness showed no meaningful sign of moderating effect on both pain and depression either. These results conform the positive effect of pain acceptance on depression, and support the fact that acceptance-based therapies would be useful to treat chronic pain. And finally suggest changes in pain acceptance and catastrophizing may be an important target to treat patients with chronic pain. (Korean J Str Res 2014;22:11∼21)

• Keywords: Chronic pain, Acceptance, Mindfulness, Catastrophizing, Depression