Associations between daily chronic pain intensity, daily anger expression, and trait anger expressiveness: An ecological momentary assessment study

Within-day associations between behavioral anger expression and momentary chronic pain intensity show significant lagged effects, with elevated behavioral anger expression linked to greater subsequent pain intensity. Links between elevated trait anger expressiveness (anger-out) and greater chronic pain intensity are well documented, but pain-related effects of expressive behaviors actually used to regulate anger when it is experienced have been little explored. This study used ecological momentary assessment methods to explore prospective associations between daily behavioral anger expression and daily chronic pain intensity. Forty-eight chronic low back pain (LBP) patients and 36 healthy controls completed electronic diary ratings of momentary pain and behavioral anger expression in response to random prompts 4 times daily for 7days. Across groups, greater trait anger-out was associated with greater daily behavioral anger expression (P