Hindawi Publishing Corporation Rehabilitation Research and Practice Volume 2012, Article ID 206263, 9 pages doi:10.1155/2012/206263 Clinical Study The Relationship between Beliefs about Pain and Functioning with Rheumatologic Conditions Tracey Pons,1 Edward Shipton,1 and Rodger Mulder2 1 Department of Anaesthesia, University of Otago, P.O. Box 4345, Christchurch 8140, New Zealand 2 Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Otago, P.O. Box 4345, Christchurch 8140, New Zealand Correspondence should be addressed to Edward Shipton, shiptonea@xtra.co.nz Received 6 March 2012; Revised 12 April 2012; Accepted 29 April 2012 Academic Editor: K. S. Sunnerhagen Copyright © 2012 Tracey Pons et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Pain beliefs inﬂuence understanding of pain mechanisms and outcomes. This study in rheumatologic conditions sought to determine a relationship between beliefs about pain and functioning. Participants in Arthritis New Zealand’s (ANZ) exercise and education programmes were used. Demographic data and validated instruments used included the Arthritis Impact Measurement Scale 2nd version-Short Form (AIMS2-SF) to measure functioning, and two scales of organic and psychological beliefs in Pain Beliefs Questionnaires (PBQ) to measure pain beliefs. 236 Members of ANZ were surveyed anonymously with AIMS2-SF and PBQ, with a 61% response rate; 144 responses were entered into the database. This study used α of 0.05 and a 1-β of 0.8 to detect for signiﬁcant eﬀect size estimated to be r = 0.25. Analysis revealed a signiﬁcant relationship between organic beliefs scale of PBQ and functioning of AIMS2-SF, with an r value of 0.32 and P value of 0.00008. No relationship was found between psychological beliefs scale of PBQ and AIMS2-SF. Organic pain beliefs are associated with poorer functioning. Psychological pain beliefs are not. Beliefs might have been modiﬁed by ANZ programmes. Clinicians should address organic pain beliefs early in consultation. Causal links between organic pain beliefs and functioning should be clariﬁed. 1. Introduction Beliefs about pain are an emerging area of research in the biopsychosocial model of pain. Research shows that negative pain beliefs have a detrimental impact on patients’ overall health, self-eﬃcacy, and function [1]. With the intervention of a self-management programme of exercise and relaxation for arthritis suﬀerers, positive changes from negative pain beliefs correlate with improvement in self-eﬃcacy, [2]. The experience of pain is a signiﬁcant problem in suﬀerers with rheumatoid arthritis; it has been recently shown to be an important predictor for psychosocial health in general [3]. Furthermore, for rheumatoid arthritis, both the extent of the disease and the belief that pain could be capably managed have been found to impact on functioning [4, 5]. Beliefs have been deﬁned as personally or culturally shar- ed cognitive conﬁgurations [6]. These diﬀer from attitudes that are deﬁned as feelings about events. Beliefs are thoughts or mental appraisals and understanding of these events. These form the preexisting concepts about the nature of reality for the individual. These thoughts may be generalised or speciﬁc to certain contexts, mould the individual’s per- ception of the environment, and shape the meaning of their experiences [7]. These thoughts can positively inﬂuence beliefs about the pain experience if, as perceived, there is control in manag- ing the pain experience, conﬁdence that the extent of harm and associated disability are not threatening, and expect- ations of recovery [8]. These thoughts can negatively inﬂu- ence beliefs about the pain experience if, as perceived, con- trol is threatened and recovery is not possible [9]. The con- sequence can be emotional distress and catastrophising, as well as excessively negative and pessimistic beliefs and thoughts about the pain experience. Speciﬁc pain beliefs that contribute to poor compliance, motivation, and misunder- standing about pain have been identiﬁed [10]. These include catastrophising, limited perception of control over the pain experience, and emotional distress. Catastrophising has been shown to be associated with persistent pain; it is a predictor of poor outcomes in pain management interventions [5, 11].