Abstract
Background:: Illness behaviors if abnormal can have significant influence in presentations of chronic pain. The aim of the study was to derive the patterns of illness behaviors and its correlates in subjects with chronic nonorganic pain. Methods:: Illness Behavior Questionnaire (IBQ) was administered to 301 adult individuals with chronic nonorganic pain. Factor analysis was performed on the IBQ, and relationships of the dimensions of illness behavior with clinical and demographic variables were computed. Results:: Majority of the sample consisted of women (n = 208; 69%) with 43% from rural background and 58% from below poverty line status. Principal axis factoring resulted in four factors, namely health concerns, affective inhibition (AI), bodily distress, and affective distress with psychosocial problems. The three factors excluding AI had significant intercorrelation among them. There was significant difference in mean scores of factors, bodily distress and affective distress in patients from urban and rural background. Conclusions:: Illness behaviors in chronic nonorganic pain can be understood as three interrelated factors-health concerns, affective distress with psychosocial problems, and bodily distress. AI might be an independent factor for presentation of chronic nonorganic pain.
Copyright
Association for Helping Neurosurgical Sick People. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Derivative-Non Commercial License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit.
Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives License, which permits unrestricted reproduction and distribution, for non-commercial purposes only; and use and reproduction, but not distribution, of adapted material for non-commercial purposes only, provided the original work is properly cited.
