National Institute for Health and Care Research

Testing a Combined Cognitive Bias Hypothesis of Pain and Pain-Related Worry in Young People

Kavallari and Lau (2022) investigate whether attention control difficulties and threat-related interpretation biases jointly contribute to pain experiences and pain-related worry in adolescents.

The authors tested the Combined Cognitive Bias Hypothesis (CCBH) within the context of adolescent pain, examining whether multiple cognitive biases provide greater explanatory power than single biases alone. They found that difficulties disengaging from pain-related cues and a tendency to interpret ambiguous situations as threatening each independently predicted greater pain experiences and pain catastrophizing. Although these cognitive factors did not correlate with one another or interact in influencing outcomes, they showed significant additive effects. Overall, the findings suggest that considering multiple cognitive processes simultaneously may improve understanding of pain-related difficulties in young people and identify a broader range of intervention targets.

Back to Top