BACKGROUND: Depressive and pain symptoms often occur concurrently in patients with psychiatric disorders or somatic diseases, but the contribution of pre-existing dysfunctional cognitive schemata to pain perception remains unclear.OBJECTIVE: To investigate the relationship between depression-related attribution styles and perceived pain intensity (PPI) after controllable versus uncontrollable electrical skin stimulation in healthy male individuals.METHODS: Causal attributions for negative events were measured using the attribution style questionnaire (ASQ) on the dimensions internal versus external (INT), global versus specific (GLO) and stable versus unstable (STA) in 50 men (20 to 31 years of age). Additionally, symptoms of anxiety and depression (measured using the Depression Scale) as well as baseline helplessness were assessed. Participants were randomly assigned to receive self-administered (controllable) or experimenter-administered (uncontrollable) painful skin stimuli. PPI was assessed after stress exposure using a visual analogue scale (0 to 100). Relationships between PPI and depression-related cognitions were calculated using correlation and multiple regression analyses.RESULTS: Correlation analyses revealed a moderate correlation between PPI and ASQ-INT scores (r=0.46). Following uncontrollable stress exposure, significantly higher PPI ratings (P=0.001) and a higher correlation between PPI and ASQ-INT (r=0.70) were observed. Multiple regression analysis showed an independent influence of stressor controllability (ß=0.39; P=0.003) and ASQ-INT (ß=0.36; P=0.006) on PPI.DISCUSSION: These findings highlight the interaction of specific depression-related cognitions and stress controllability on pain intensity perception.CONCLUSIONS: The results of the present study may facilitate understanding of the cognitive aspects of pain intensity perception and improve psychological pain therapies focusing on attributions and controllability.

中文翻译：

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健康的男性，经皮肤电刺激后，抑郁归因方式和应激源的不可控制性增加了感知到的疼痛强度。

背景：精神疾病或躯体疾病患者通常会同时发生抑郁和疼痛症状，但尚不清楚功能障碍的认知图式对疼痛感知的贡献。目的：研究抑郁相关归因方式与感知疼痛强度之间的关系（PPI）在健康男性个体中进行可控与不可控的皮肤电刺激后。方法：使用归因风格问卷（ASQ）测量内部事件，外部事件（INT），整体事件与特定事件（GLO）和稳定事件的负面事件的因果关系与50位男性（20至31岁）的不稳定（STA）相比。此外，还评估了焦虑和抑郁症状（使用抑郁量表测量）以及基线无助感。参与者被随机分配接受自我管理的（可控制的）或实验者管理的（不可控制的）疼痛的皮肤刺激。使用视觉模拟量表（0到100）评估压力暴露后的PPI。结果：相关性分析显示PPI和ASQ-INT评分之间存在中等程度的相关性（r = 0.46）。在无法控制的压力暴露之后，观察到明显更高的PPI等级（P = 0.001）以及PPI与ASQ-INT之间的相关性更高（r = 0.70）。多元回归分析显示压力源可控性（ß= 0.39; P = 0.003）和ASQ-INT（ß= 0.36; P = 0.006）对PPI有独立的影响。