A Study of the effects of trait anxiety, health locus of control orientation, commitment level, pain duration and severity on learned resourcefulness

Abstract

VIII ABSTRACT The main purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of locus of control orientation, trait anxiety, pain duration, pain severity, and the level of commitment to life, and their interaction effects on learned resourcefulness. The research was carried out in the Pain Clinic attached to Istanbul Medical Faculty at Çapa. 88 chronic pain patients referred to the clinical psychologist at the clinic, between March and July 1992, were given the Self Control Schedule (SCS), Trait Anxiety Inventory, Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scale (MHLC), together with a structured interview on an individual basis. T-tests, Oneway Anovas, Chi-squares, and Stepwise Multiple Regression analyses were conducted. The results showed that patients high in trait anxiety and externality, and patients reporting high pain intensity ratings had significantly lower scores on the SCS when compared with their counterparts. Patients having a high commitment level were found to have significantly higher scores on SCS when compared with patients whose commitment levels were low. Finally, while patients having pain for 6-18 months yielded the lowest SCS scores, patients having pain for 18-36 months yielded the highest SCS scores, with patients having pain for more than 36 months being placed in an intermediate range. Regression analysis indicated the interactions of trait anxiety to both commitment level and pain severity and the interaction between IHLC and commitment level to explain 58.6 % of the variance in SCS scores. The influence of the demographic variables on the dependent and the independent variables were analyzed. The implications of the results were discussed in terms of a cognitive behavioural framework.