Resumen de General versus specific indices in the assessment of chronic pain coping.

Carmen Ramírez Maestre, Alicia Eva López Martínez, Rosa Esteve Zarazaga

• The Vanderbilt Pain Management Inventory (VPMI) (Brown & Nicassio, 1987) was created to assess two forms of coping with chronic pain: active and passive. The aim of the present paper was to extend the utility of the VPMI to evaluate specific coping strategies. 210 chronic pain patients participated in the first study. A confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the Active and Passive scales of the VPMI could be divided into four reliable scales: Catastrophizing, Social Support Seeking, Suppression and Behavioural Coping. Studies 2 and 3 evaluated the criteria validity of the general and specific scales in relation to pain intensity, negative mood and impairment in two samples of pain patients (N=112 and N=135). Passive coping, and especially catastrophizing, showed a strong consistent relationship with deficient outcomes in adaptation.