Or register here
Global Search

Trusted Resources: Evidence & Education

Scientific literature and patient education texts

Back to Evidence & Education / Scientific Articles

Daily opioid use fluctuates as a function of pain, catastrophizing, and affect in patients with sickle cell disease: an electronic daily diary analysis

key information

source: Journal of Pain

year: 2017

authors: Finan PH, Carroll CP, Moscou-Jackson G, Martel MO, Campbell CM, Pressman A, Smyth JM, Tremblay JM, Lanzkron SM, Haythornthwaite JA

summary/abstract:

Chronic opioid therapy is a common treatment regimen for patients with sickle cell disease (SCD), a chronically painful recessive hemoglobinopathy. The collective risk profile of chronic opioid therapy necessitates an understanding of which pain-related factors, such as affect and pain catastrophizing, are associated with the ebbs and flows of opioid use in daily life, a topic that has received very little attention among patients with any type of chronically painful condition, including SCD. We therefore investigated the variability of day-to-day patterns of short and long-acting opioid use and their associations with pain and pain-related cognitive and affective processes in daily life among patients with SCD using a nightly electronic diary (N = 45). Opioid use was self-reported and converted into oral morphine equivalents for analysis, which was conducted with mixed effects modeling. Results indicated that greater pain and pain catastrophizing were associated with greater use of short- acting opioids, and negative affect was associated with greater use of long-acting opioids. Additionally, the association of pain and short-acting opioid use was moderated by pain catastrophizing, showing that opioid use was elevated when patients catastrophized about their pain, even if they reported low levels of pain. These findings suggest that monitoring pain-related cognitive and affective variables may be a useful approach to understanding risk for problematic opioid use in patients with daily pain.

organization: Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; McGill University; Pennsylvania State University

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpain.2017.08.010

read more full text

Related Content

To improve your experience on this site, we use cookies. This includes cookies essential for the basic functioning of our website, cookies for analytics purposes, and cookies enabling us to personalize site content. By clicking on 'Accept' or any content on this site, you agree that cookies can be placed. You may adjust your browser's cookie settings to suit your preferences. More Information

The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this.

Close

© 2026 rareLife solutions Inc.

To improve your experience on this site, we use cookies. This includes cookies essential for the basic functioning of our website, cookies for analytics purposes, and cookies enabling us to personalize site content. By clicking on 'Accept' or any content on this site, you agree that cookies can be placed. You may adjust your browser's cookie settings to suit your preferences. More Information

The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this.

Close