Personality and adjustment to chronic pain

This review examines the recent literature on the role of personality dimensions, especially neuroticism and extroversion, in adjustment to chronic pain. While earlier approaches to the study of personality and chronic pain placed more emphasis on identifying certain personality profiles associated with the onset of persisting pain, more recent approaches have focused on studying interactions between personality traits, cognitive processes, coping skill repertoires and environmental variables in relation to adjustment to chronic pain. However, although the findings of this research have been promising, methodological shortcomings evident in the few studies available preclude the drawing of firm conclusions. Further research in this area should pay particular attention to achieving adequate sample sizes and statistical power, as well as the use of longitudinal designs and different pain populations.