• Gema T Ruiz-Párraga and Alicia E López-Martínez.
• Department of Personality, Assessment and Psychological Treatment, Universidad de Málaga, Málaga, Spain.
• Ann Behav Med. 2015 Apr 1; 49 (2): 247-57.

BackgroundThe degree to which shared vulnerability and protective factors for chronic pain and trauma-related symptoms contribute to pain adjustment in chronic pain patients who have experienced a traumatic event remains unclear.PurposeThe purpose is to test a hypothetical model of the contribution of experiential avoidance, resilience and pain acceptance to pain adjustment in a sample of 229 chronic back pain patients who experienced a traumatic event before the onset of pain.MethodsStructural equation modelling was used to test the linear relationships between the variables.ResultsThe empirical model shows significant relationships between the variables: resilience on pain acceptance and trauma-related symptoms, experiential avoidance on trauma-related symptoms and experiential avoidance, pain acceptance and trauma-related symptoms on pain adjustment.ConclusionsThis study demonstrates the role of a vulnerability pathway (i.e. experiential avoidance) and a protective pathway (i.e. resilience and pain acceptance) in adaptation to pain after a traumatic event.

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