Research evidenced the association of pain coping strategies with short-term and long-term adjustments to chronic pain. Yet, previous studies mainly assessed the frequency of coping strategies when pain occurs whilst no data is available on one's flexibility/rigidity in using different pain coping strategies, i.e., pain coping variability, in dealing with different situations.

This study aimed to examine the multivariate association between pain coping variability and committed action in predicting concurrent pain-related disability. Specifically, we examined the independent effects of pain coping variability and committed action in predicting concurrent pain-related disability in a sample of Chinese patients with chronic pain.

Chronic pain patients (n=287) completed a test battery assessing pain intensity/disability, pain coping strategies and variability, committed action, and pain catastrophizing. Multiple regression modeling compared the association of individual pain coping strategies and pain coping variability with disability (Models 1–2), and examined the independent effects of committed action and pain coping variability on disability (Model 3).

Of the 8 coping strategies assessed, only guarding (std β=0.17) was emerged as significant independent predictor of disability (Model 1). Pain coping variability (std β=−0.10) was associated with disability after controlling for guarding and other covariates (Model 2) and was emerged as independent predictor of disability (Model 3: std β=−0.11) (all P<0.05) (Table 1, Table 2).

Our data offers preliminary support for the multivariate association between pain coping variability and committed action in predicting concurrent pain-related disability, which supplements the existing pain coping data that are largely based on assessing frequency of coping.