PSYC 2301 Lecture 7: November 4th Lecture

• School: Carleton University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 2301
• Professor: Tarry Ahuja

Document Summary

Two classifications: acute: caused by soft tissue damage, infection, inflammation, chronic: linked with long term illness or disease, may have no apparent cause, can trigger other issues, difficult to assess and diagnose. Chronic benign: 6 month +, intractable to treatment (low back pain) Recurrent acute pain: series of intermittent episodes (migraines, tmj) Chronic progressive: 6 month +, increasing severity (rheumatoid arthritis) Affects 1 in 10 canadians (~1. 5 million) Rates are even higher in those over 65 and female. Costs in health care utilization and lost productivity are approximately billion annually. Over billion spent annually on otc meds. Cultural differences some cultures report pain sooner and more intensely, linked to cultural norms. Gender: women are more sensitive to pain, menstrual cycle is an indirect contributor linked to differences in emotional processing of pain. Coping styles: catastrophizing heightens pain experience (predicts greater post-surgical pain, more intense labour pain), resilience and positive emotions lowers pain.