This study investigated whether daily and laboratory assessed pain differs as a function of the temporal stability and valence of affect in individuals with chronic knee osteoarthritis (KOA).
One hundred fifty-one men and women with KOA completed 14 days of electronic diaries assessing positive affect (PA), negative affect (NA), and clinical pain. A subset of participants (n =79) engaged in quantitative sensory testing (QST). State PA and NA were assessed prior to administration of stimuli that induced suprathreshold pain and temporal summation. Multilevel modeling and multiple regression evaluated associations of affect and pain as a function of valence (i.e., positive versus negative) and stability (i.e., stable versus state).
In the diary, stable NA (B = -.63, standard error [SE] = .13, p < .001) was a stronger predictor of clinical KOA pain than stable PA (B = -.18, SE = .11, p = .091), and state PA (B = -.09, p < .001) was a stronger predictor of concurrent daily clinical pain than state NA (B = .04, SE = .02, p = .068). In the laboratory, state PA (B = -.05, SE = .02, p = .042), but not state NA (p = .46), predicted diminished temporal summation of mechanical pain.
Stable NA is more predictive of clinical pain than stable PA, whereas state PA is more predictive of both clinical and laboratory pain than state NA. The findings suggest that dynamic affect-pain processes in the field may reflect individual differences in central pain facilitation.