Psychosocial Correlates of Objective, Performance-Based, and Patient-Reported Physical Function Among Patients with Heterogeneous Chronic Pain

Improving all aspects of physical function is an important goal of chronic pain management. Few studies follow recent guidelines to comprehensively assess physical function via patient-reported, performance-based, and objective/ambulatory measures. To test 1) the interrelation between the 3 types of physical function measurement and 2) the association between psychosocial factors and each type of physical function measurement. Patients with chronic pain (N=79) completed measures of: 1) physical function (patient-reported disability; performance-based 6-minute walk-test; objective accelerometer step count); 2) pain and non-adaptive coping (pain during rest and activity, pain-catastrophizing, kinesiophobia); 3) adaptive coping (mindfulness, general coping, pain-resilience); and 4) social-emotional dysfunction (anxiety, depression, social isolation and emotional support). First, we tested the interrelation among the 3 aspects of physical function. Second, we used structural equation modeling to test associations between psychosocial factors (pain and non-adaptive coping, adaptive coping, and social-emotional dysfunction) and each measurement of physical function. Performance-based and objective physical function were significantly interrelated ( =0.48,