Pain-Related Rumination, But Not Magnification or Helplessness, Mediates Race and Sex Differences in Experimental Pain

Abstract

Compared with white individuals and men, black individuals and women show a lower tolerance for experimental pain stimuli. Previous studies suggest that pain catastrophizing is important in this context, but little is known about which components of catastrophizing contribute to these race and sex differences. The purpose of the current study was to examine the individual components of catastrophizing (rumination, magnification, and helplessness) as candidate mediators of race and sex differences in experimental pain tolerance. Healthy undergraduates (N = 172, 74% female, 43.2% black) participated in a cold pressor task and completed a situation-specific version of the Pain Catastrophizing Scale. Black and female participants showed a lower pain tolerance than white (P < .01, d = .70) and male (P < .01, d = .55) participants, respectively. Multiple mediation analyses indicated that these race and sex differences were mediated by the rumination component of catastrophizing (indirect effect = −7.13, 95% confidence interval (CI), −16.20 to −1.96, and 5.75, 95% CI, .81–15.57, respectively) but not by the magnification (95% CI, −2.91 to 3.65 and −1.54 to 1.85, respectively) or helplessness (95% CI, −5.53 to 3.31 and −.72 to 5.38, respectively) components. This study provides new information about race and sex differences in pain and suggests that treatments targeting the rumination component of catastrophizing may help mitigate pain-related disparities.