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Mental pain as a global person-centered outcome measure

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 July 2021

Fiammetta Cosci*
Affiliation:
Department of Health Sciences, University of Florence, Florence, Italy Department of Psychiatry & Neuropsychology, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
Giovanni Mansueto
Affiliation:
Department of Health Sciences, University of Florence, Florence, Italy Department of Psychology, Sigmund Freud University, Milan, Italy
Silvia Benemei
Affiliation:
Headache and Clinical Pharmacology Center, Careggi University Hospital, Florence, Italy
Alberto Chiarugi
Affiliation:
Department of Health Sciences, University of Florence, Florence, Italy Headache and Clinical Pharmacology Center, Careggi University Hospital, Florence, Italy
Francesco De Cesaris
Affiliation:
Headache and Clinical Pharmacology Center, Careggi University Hospital, Florence, Italy
Tom Sensky
Affiliation:
Department of Brain Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom
*
*Author for correspondence: Fiammetta Cosci, Email: [email protected]

Abstract

Background

Mental pain has been proposed as a global person-centered outcome measure. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to test an essential requisite of such a measure, namely that mental pain incorporates independent contributions from a range of discrete but disparate outcome measures.

Methods

Two hundred migraine patients were assessed concerning migraine disability, psychosomatic syndromes, mental pain, depression, anxiety, and psychosocial dimensions. General linear models were tested to verify which measures would individually make unique contributions to overall mental pain.

Results

The final model, accounting for 44% of variance, identified that higher mental pain was associated with more severe depressive symptoms, higher migraine disability, lower well-being, and poorer quality of life.

Conclusion

In this sample, mental pain was shown to behave as expected of a global outcome measure, since multiple measures of symptomatology and quality of life showed modest but significant bivariate correlations with mental pain and some of these measures individually made unique contributions to overall mental pain.

Type
Original Research
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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