Structural model for pain self-efficacy based on health oriented lifestyle with mediating role of helplessness in patients with chronic pain

Pain is a pervasive and distressing experience. Chronic musculoskeletal pain is highly prevalent in different communities. Exacerbation or improvement of pain is related to psychological factors in addition to biological aspects. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the structural model of the relationship between health oriented lifestyle, helplessness and pain self-efficacy in patients with chronic pain. The present study was a descriptive cross sectional study using structural equation modeling. We used available sampling for selecting 384 patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain as the study population including patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain referred to Najafabad private clinics. Research tools included health oriented lifestyle questionnaire (HPLQ, 1988), Pain Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (PSQ, 2007) and Learned Helplessness Questionnaire (LHQ, 1988). The data were analyzed by SPSS23 and AMOS with help of structural equation modeling. The results indicated the health oriented lifestyles had significant direct relationship with pain self-efficacy. Learned helplessness had relative reverse relationship with pain self-efficacy and had significant reverse relationship with health promoting lifestyle. Also the mediatory role of learned helplessness in the relationship to health promoting lifestyle was supported and a relative reverse correlation was obtained (p < 0.05).In general, the model of research was fit and the considered factor structure was optimal. Improving health promoting lifestyle was involved in pain self-efficacy in patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain.Changing and improving these indicators can be helpful in treatment along with medical treatment.