Older adults’ preferences for formal social support of autonomy and dependence in pain: development and validation of a scale

Chronic pain among older adults is common and often disabling. Pain-related formal social support (e.g., provided by staff at day-care centres, nursing homes), and the extent to which it promotes functional autonomy or dependence, plays a significant role in the promotion of older adults’ ability to engage in their daily activities. Assessing older adults’ preferences for pain-related social support for functional autonomy or dependence could contribute to increase formal social support responsiveness to individuals’ needs. Therefore, this study aimed at developing and validating the Preferences for Formal Social Support of Autonomy and Dependence in pain Inventory (PFSSADI). One hundred and sixty five older adults with chronic musculoskeletal pain (Mage=79.1, 67.3% women), attending day-care centers, completed the PFSSADI, the revised Formal Social Support for Autonomy and Dependence in Pain Inventory, and a measure of desire for (in)dependence; the PFSSADI was filled out again 6 weeks later. Confirmatory factor analyses showed a structure of two correlated factors (r= .56): (a) Preferences for Autonomy Support (?=.99); and (b) Preferences for Dependence Support (?=.98). The scale showed good test-retest reliability, sensitivity and discriminant and concurrent validity; the higher the preferences for dependence support the higher the desire for dependence (r=.33) and the lower the desire for independence (r=-.41). The PFSSADI is an innovative tool, which may contribute to explore the role of pain-related social support responsiveness on the promotion of older adults’ functional autonomy when in pain.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

The revised formal social support for autonomy and dependence in pain inventory (FSSADI_PAIN): confirmatory factor analysis and validity

ain among older adults is common and generally associated with high levels of functional disability. Despite its important role in elders' pain experiences, perceived (formal) social support (PSS) has shown inconsistent effects on their functional autonomy. This suggests a moderator role of 2 recently conceptualized functions of PSS: perceived promotion of dependence versus autonomy. The present study aimed at revising and further validating the Formal Social Support for Autonomy and Dependence in Pain Inventory (FSSADI_PAIN), which measures these 2 PSS functions among institutionalized elders in pain. Two hundred fifty older adults (mean age = 81.36 years, 75.2% women) completed the revised FSSADI_PAIN along with measures of physical functioning (ie, Medical Outcome Study Short Form-36) and informal PSS (ie, Social Support Scale of Medical Outcomes Study). Confirmatory factor analyses showed a good fit for a 2-factor structure: 1) perceived promotion of autonomy (n = 4 items; alpha = .89), and 2) perceived promotion of dependence (n = 4 items; alpha = .85). The revised FSSADI_PAIN showed good content, discriminant, and criterion-related validity; it discriminated the PSS of male and female older adults and also of elders with different levels of physical functioning. In conclusion, the revised FSSADI_PAIN is an innovative, valid, and reliable tool that allows us to assess 2 important functions of PSS, which may play a relevant role in the prevention and reduction of pain-related physical disability and functional dependence among institutionalized older adults. Perspective: This article presents a revised version of the FSSADI_PAIN that assesses elders' perceived promotion of functional autonomy/dependence as 2 independent functions of perceived social support. This measure may contribute to future research on the role of close interpersonal contexts on the promotion of active aging among elders with chronic pain.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

The perception, understanding and experience of flourishing in young people living with chronic pain: a Q-methodology study

Much research has adopted a deficits-based approach to chronic pain, neglecting the study of flourishing. Using a Q-methodological framework, this study sought to explore how individuals experience, understand and perceive flourishing in the context of young people living with chronic pain. Fifty-four individuals completed a Q-sorting task, indicating their level of agreement and disagreement with 52 statements. Q-analysis generated three factors that represented clear viewpoints of participants: ‘Pain is not a barrier to flourishing’, ‘Adapting to a new life’ and ‘Adopting a positive perspective’. Factors expressed the viewpoints that flexibility is key to enjoying life despite chronic pain, while resilience, management of stressors, acceptance and problem-solving may be required to flourish with chronic pain. Participants’ understanding of flourishing also focused on the appreciation and enjoyment of life and achievements. This study provides a useful contribution towards furthering our understanding of flourishing in young people living with chronic pain

Catastrophic thinking about pain: A critical appraisal highlighting the importance of the social context and balance

Numerous research studies have shown that endorsing a catastrophic interpretation about pain is associated with deleterious outcomes, such as higher levels of distress, pain intensity and disability for the person in pain. The fear-avoidance model has been found to be useful in explaining these associations by stressing that heightened feelings of distress and behaviour aimed at reducing or avoiding pain might be adaptive in an acute pain context but can become maladaptive when the pain becomes chronic. Pain is rarely a private event and the communal coping model underscores that the heightened pain expression in people endorsing catastrophic thoughts about pain could have a social, communicative function of eliciting empathic responses in others. However, these models are not all-encompassing. In particular, neither of the models takes into account the growing evidence indicating that catastrophic thinking in observers can also impact their emotional experience and behaviour in response to the other’s pain. Moreover, the context of multiple goals in which pain and pain behaviour occurs is largely ignored in both models. In this article we present an integrative perspective on catastrophic thinking that takes into account the social system and interplay between different goals people in pain and observers might pursue (e.g., school/work performance, leisure, social engagement). Specifically, this integrative perspective stresses the importance of considering the bidirectional influence between catastrophic thoughts in the person experiencing pain and observers. Furthermore, the importance of balance between pain-relief and other important goals as well as in the level of catastrophic thoughts in understanding the maladaptive influence of catastrophic thinking will be underlined. Clinical implications and future research directions of this integrated perspective are discussed

Helping your partner with chronic pain: the importance of helping motivation, received social support, and its timeliness

Objective Like all intentional acts, social support provision varies with respect to its underlying motives. Greater autonomous or volitional motives (e.g., enjoyment, full commitment) to help individuals with chronic pain (ICPs) are associated with greater well-being benefits for the latter, as indexed by improved satisfaction of their psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The present study investigates the processes explaining why partners’ autonomous or volitional helping motivation yields these benefits. Methods A total of 134 couples, where at least one partner had chronic pain, completed a 14-day diary. Partners reported on their daily helping motives, whereas ICPs reported on their daily received support, timing of help, need-based experiences, and pain. Results On days when partners provided help for volitional motives, ICPs indicated receiving more help, which partially accounted for the effect of autonomous helping motivation on ICP need-based experiences. Timing of help moderated the effects of daily received support on ICP need-based experiences. Conclusions Findings highlight the importance of ICPs of receiving support in general and the role of timing in particular, which especially matters when there is little support being received.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

The role of environment and AGN feedback in quenching local galaxies: Comparing cosmological hydrodynamical simulations to the SDSS

We present an analysis of the quenching of local observed and simulated galaxies, including an investigation of the dependence of quiescence on both intrinsic and environmental parameters. We apply an advanced machine learning technique utilizing random forest classification to predict when galaxies are star forming or quenched. We perform separate classification analyses for three groups of galaxies: (a) central galaxies; (b) high-mass satellites ($M_{*} > 10^{10.5}{\rm M_{\odot}}$); and (c) low-mass satellites ($M_{*} < 10^{10}{\rm M_{\odot}}$) for three cosmological hydrodynamical simulations (EAGLE, Illustris, and IllustrisTNG), and observational data from the SDSS. The simulation results are unanimous and unambiguous: quiescence in centrals and high-mass satellites is best predicted by intrinsic parameters (specifically central black hole mass), whilst it is best predicted by environmental parameters (specifically halo mass) for low-mass satellites. In observations, we find black hole mass to best predict quiescence for centrals and high mass satellites, exactly as predicted by the simulations. However, local galaxy over-density is found to be most predictive parameter for low-mass satellites. Nonetheless, both simulations and observations do agree that it is environment which quenches low mass satellites. We provide evidence which suggests that the dominance of local over-density in classifying low mass systems may be due to the high uncertainty in halo mass estimation from abundance matching, rather than it being fundamentally a more predictive parameter. Finally, we establish that the qualitative trends with environment predicted in simulations are recoverable in the observation space. This has important implications for future wide-field galaxy surveys.Comment: Accepted to MNRAS; 32 pages; 22 figure

Looking on the bright side: the relationships between flourishing and pain-related outcomes among adolescents with chronic pain

A deficits-based approach to adolescent chronic pain currently dominates the literature, to the exclusion of positive approaches, such as flourishing. Addressing this knowledge gap, this study examined the relationships between flourishing and pain-related outcomes in adolescent chronic pain. Seventy-nine adolescents aged 11 - 24 years were asked to complete self-report measures ofthree domains of flourishing and four pain-related outcomes. Correlation coefficients and four hierarchical linear regression analyses were conducted, controlling for age and gender. Flourishing mental health was associated with, and significantly contributed to explaining, anxiety and depressive symptoms, and social and family functioning impairment. Benefit finding and posttraumatic growth were each associated with social and family functioning impairment, while posttraumatic growth was also associated with anxiety and depressive symptoms. Additionally, benefit finding significantly contributed to explaining pain intensity. Study findings underscore the importance of assessing the relationships between flourishing and pain-related outcomes in adolescents with chronic pain.<br/

Encoding edge type information in graphlets.

Graph embedding approaches have been attracting increasing attention in recent years mainly due to their universal applicability. They convert network data into a vector space in which the graph structural information and properties are maximumly preserved. Most existing approaches, however, ignore the rich information about interactions between nodes, i.e., edge attribute or edge type. Moreover, the learned embeddings suffer from a lack of explainability, and cannot be used to study the effects of typed structures in edge-attributed networks. In this paper, we introduce a framework to embed edge type information in graphlets and generate a Typed-Edge Graphlets Degree Vector (TyE-GDV). Additionally, we extend two combinatorial approaches, i.e., the colored graphlets and heterogeneous graphlets approaches to edge-attributed networks. Through applying the proposed method to a case study of chronic pain patients, we find that not only the network structure of a patient could indicate his/her perceived pain grade, but also certain social ties, such as those with friends, colleagues, and healthcare professionals, are more crucial in understanding the impact of chronic pain. Further, we demonstrate that in a node classification task, the edge-type encoded graphlets approaches outperform the traditional graphlet degree vector approach by a significant margin, and that TyE-GDV could achieve a competitive performance of the combinatorial approaches while being far more efficient in space requirements

Systematic review: Family resilience after pediatric cancer diagnosis

Objectives&nbsp; A systematic review was conducted to (1) investigate family resilience in the context of pediatric cancer, and (2) examine theoretical, methodological, and statistical issues in this literature. Family resilience was operationalized as competent family functioning after exposure to a significant risk.&nbsp; Methods&nbsp; Following guidelines for systematic reviews, searches were performed using Web of Science, Pubmed, Cochrane, PsycInfo, and Embase. After screening 5,563 articles, 85 fulfilled inclusion criteria and were extracted for review.&nbsp; Results&nbsp; Findings indicated that most families are resilient, adapting well to the crisis of cancer diagnosis. However, a subset still experiences difficulties. Methodological issues in the current literature hamper strong nuanced conclusions.&nbsp; Conclusions&nbsp; We suggest future research with a greater focus on family resilience and factors predicting it, based on available theory, and conducted with attention toward unit of measurement and use of appropriate statistical analyses. Improvements in research are needed to best inform family-based clinical efforts. &copy; The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Pediatric Psychology. All rights reserved