continuation of discussion

Biopsychosocial factors in pain experience

Several factors determine the level of pain experienced by different people. The biopsychosocial model was developed after realizing that the biomedical field did not consider other factors that may lead to more acute pain. (Racine et al., 2012) There must be an interaction between biological factors (genetics, hormones, blood pressure, etc.), psychological factors (mood, pain coping, etc.), and social factors (gender roles, race identity, discrimination, etc.).It is important to understand the level of living standards may determine the level of pain.

An example is a situation where we have two people having diabetes, but they come from different family backgrounds. The one from a humble background is likely to experience more pain due to stress, inability to eat the correct diet as prescribed to them by the doctor, lack of funds to purchase the prescribed medication, including insulin for injection, unlike the other person who can afford all these. Another example is when you expose several people to pain stimuli; they would rate pain severity differently even though they were similar. As we all know, chronic pains cannot be treated; they can only be managed. Therefore patients need to develop coping strategies such as obtaining more information about the pain to comprehend and seeking medical attention. Patients can engage in exercise or other activities to help them forget about the pain. Chronic pains require attention and positive interpretation to be able to manage them. Attention is said to be the demand function of pain, and many are the times when we don't give attention to warning symptoms but start worrying when the situation becomes chronic (Lumley et al., 2011). However, attention helps in motivating behavior. Interpretation of pain determines the level of severity. Guidance and counseling and the government can also invest funds to ensure patients with chronic pains receive free regular check-ups and free medication.

References

Lumley, M. A., Cohen, J. L., Borszcz, G. S., Cano, A., Radcliffe, A. M., Porter, L. S., ... & Keefe, F. J. (2011). Pain and emotion: a biopsychosocial review of recent research.  Journal of clinical psychology, 67(9), 942-968.

Racine, M., Tousignant-Laflamme, Y., Kloda, L. A., Dion, D., Dupuis, G., & Choinière, M. (2012). A systematic literature review of 10 years of research on sex/gender and pain perception–part 2: do biopsychosocial factors alter pain sensitivity differently in women and men?. Pain, 153(3), 619-635.