Does Loneliness Mediate the Relationship Between Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and Pain Catastrophizing Among Women?

AbstractMost adults in the United States report experiencing at least one adverse childhood experience (ACE), with around a quarter of the population reporting three or more. ACEs impact adult biological (e.g., hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis) and psychosocial (e.g., loneliness) functioning, including cognitive patterns in stressful situations. As one example, pain catastrophizing is an emotional and cognitive reaction to pain that is closely related to low distress tolerance. We hypothesized that women with more ACEs would report greater levels of pain catastrophizing in adulthood, an effect potentially mediated via higher levels of loneliness (i.e., perceived lack of social support). Biologically female participants (N=109; 39.8 ±14.0 years of age; 83.5% white) were recruited through Mechanical Turk and a university online recruitment tool, and completed an online survey including demographics, the 10-item Adverse Childhood Events Scale, the 13-item Pain Catastrophizing Scale, and the 20-item UCLA Loneliness Scale Version 3. A bootstrapped mediation analysis examined the relationships between ACEs and pain catastrophizing via loneliness. Results indicated that loneliness had a significant indirect effect on the relationship between ACEs and pain catastrophizing (indirect effect=0.69; 99% CI=0.15–1.40) such that inc reased ACEs were related to greater loneliness, which, in turn, was related to greater pain catastrophizing. The present study adds to the literature by s...
Source: Journal of Child and Adolescent Trauma - Category: Child Development Source Type: research