Are Pacing Patterns Really Based on Value Goals? Exploring the Contextual Role of Pain Acceptance and Pain Catastrophizing in Women with Fibromyalgia

Abstract

Pain catastrophizing and pain acceptance have been associated with functioning in fbromyalgia. In relation to activity patterns, pacing has been defned as a helpful pattern to regulate activities in the context of value-based goals, but results regarding whether it is adaptive or not are controversial. This study analyzes the moderating role of pain acceptance between pain catastrophizing and pacing in 231 women with fbromyalgia. Moderation analyses were conducted with model 1 from the PROCESS Macro version 3.4. The results showed a clear moderating efect of pain acceptance. At low levels of pain acceptance, catastrophizing and pacing patterns maintained signifcant and positive associations. However, at high levels of pain acceptance, pacing was independent of catastrophizing. Far from considering pacing patterns as functional or dysfunctional per se, our results suggest that women with low pain acceptance carry out pacing infuenced by catastrophizing independently of their goal pursuit, while patients who accept their pain may use pacing as a regulatory mechanism according to their goals.