PERCEPTUAL REACTANCE, DRUG OF CHOICE AND PAIN PERCEPTION IN SUBSTANCE ABUSERS (DRUG ABUSE).
Contributors: New York University.
Published: 1993
Number of pages: 161
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Psychology, Personality.; Health Sciences, Mental Health.
Description: Managing complaints of pain in the hospitalized substance abuser poses a challenging nursing care problem. The objective of this research was to develop a better understanding of the experience of pain for drug abusers. Specifically, it was posited that their pain experience is related to their perceptual style which is also expected to be manifest in their preferred drug of use. Petrie's (1967) theory of perceptual reactance predicts that persons who characteristically augment or magnify sensory experience are relatively pain intolerant and prefer drugs which restrict sensory experience, whereas persons who perceptually reduce or attenuate the same are more pain tolerant and prefer the subjective effects of sensory-expanding drugs. Utilizing a descriptive survey design, the relationships among perceptual reactance, drug of choice and pain perception were explored. Perceptual reactance in a convenience volunteer sample of 122 treatment-seeking male substance abusers was described using Vando's (1974) Reducing-Augmenting Scale and non-specific skin conductance response frequency. Drug of choice was dichotomized as either a sensory-expanding or restricting drug and operationalized as response to a single open-ended question assessing drug preference. Pain perception was measured as tolerance in seconds to a single cold pressor trial. Descriptive analyses revealed that over one-third the sample evidenced electrodermal non-responsivity, and a high rate of cold-pressor pain intolerance. Reducing-Augmenting Scale score correlated to drug of choice for the electrodermally responsive subsample only and not at all to pain perception. The electrodermal measure of perceptual reactance did not correlate to drug of choice or pain perception. Drug of choice related to the subject's history of anxiety and drug treatment, and both pain perception and drug of choice were associated with whether or not the subject was currently drug-using.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-08, Section: B, page: 4076.

Thesis (PH.D.)--NEW YORK UNIVERSITY, 1993.

School code: 0146.