Psychological factors associated with pain perception in adult patients with hemophilia

Authors

  • Raul Martinez Instituto de Hematología e Inmunología

Keywords:

hemofilia, dolor, psicología, catastrofizacion

Abstract

Introduction: Patients with hemophilia (PwH) experience acute pain during spontaneous joint bleeds and may develop chronic pain due to joint degeneration. The pain experience includes cognitive, motivational and affective aspects that have not been sufficiently addressed in these patients.

Objective: From a multidimensional model, to evaluate the psychological factors that may be present in the perception of experimental pain in adult patients and compare them with those of healthy people.

Methods: 23 patients and 25 healthy subjects participated. Three dimensions were evaluated: sensory-discriminative (pain threshold, body pain and current pain intensity), affective-motivational (anxiety, depression) and cognitive-evaluative (pain catastrophizing), in addition to the quality of life related to the health (HRQL) and personality traits (neuroticism and introversion-extraversion).

Results: Patients show an altered pain experience, evidence of this are the indicators found in the sensory-discriminative dimensions with significantly lower thresholds of pain due to mechanical pressure and greater body pain; and evaluative cognitive from a greater catastrophizing. The type of hemophilia, the severity, and the presence or absence of arthropathies seem not to be associated with the experience of pain.

Conclusions: The PcH show a more altered experience of pain, mainly in the sensory-discriminative dimension and the cognitive-evaluative one. No alteration was observed in the affective-emotional dimension. The clinical variables of hemophilia presentation appear not to be associated with the experience of pain. However, there is an important influence of psychological variables such as the neuroticism trait and the catastrophizing of pain.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Published

2025-12-30

How to Cite

1.
Martinez R. Psychological factors associated with pain perception in adult patients with hemophilia. Rev Cubana Hematol Inmunol Hemoter [Internet]. 2025 Dec. 30 [cited 2025 Dec. 31];41. Available from: https://revhematologia.sld.cu/index.php/hih/article/view/1994

Issue

Section

HEMATOLOGÍA