Societal impact on older persons? chronic pain: Roles of age stereotypes, age attribution, and age discrimination

Rationale: In view of the severity and prevalence of chronic pain, combined with the limited success of long-term treatments, there is the need for a more expansive understanding of its etiology. We therefore investigated over time three societal-based potential determinants of chronic pain that were previously unexamined in this connection: negative age stereotypes, age attribution, and age discrimination. Methods: The cohort consisted of 1373 Americans aged 55 and older, who participated in four waves of the National Health and Resilience in Veterans Study, spanning seven years. Results: Consistent with the hypotheses, negative age stereotypes as well as age discrimination predicted chronic pain, and age attribution acted as a mediator between the negative age stereotypes and chronic pain. In a subset of participants who were free of chronic pain at baseline, those who had assimilated negative age stereotypes were 32% more likely to develop chronic pain in the next seven years than those who had assimilated positive age stereotypes. Conclusion: Our finding that the three societal-based and modifiable predictors contributed to chronic pain re-futes the widely held belief that chronic pain experienced in later life is entirely and inevitably a consequence of aging.