Comparison of Psychological Variables of Catastrophizing, Fear of Movement, and Pain Intensity Regarding Different Types of Attachment Style in Patients with Chronic- Musculoskeletal

Chronic pain is an assimilating and debilitating status accompanied by multiple psychological variables. This study aimed to investigate the comparison between tree psychological variants of catastrophizing and fear of movement based on different attachment styles in patients with chronic musculoskeletal pains. In this study, 150 participated who were selected by convenience sampling from the subjects referred to Shohada, Imam Hossein and Sina hospitals in Tehran. They answered Hazen and Shaver attachment style questionnaire and the questionnaires of catastrophizing, fear of movement, and pain intensity. Data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of variance. The results showed that among three secure, avoidant and ambivalent attachment styles, the ambivalent style is the only one that is related to catastrophizing and fear of movement. When facing threats such as pain, patients with ambivalent style, can use emotion regulation strategies with hyper-activation (like catastrophizing). Theoretical and practical implications of findings are discussed in details in the last section of the article.