JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Pain is a common human experience which can drastically impair our health and daily functioning. Clinical research and practice are therefore examining factors that can reduce pain experiences, both within and outside the clinical setting. While promising previous studies imply pain modulation through social contact, their procedures are often not in line with the latest progress in assessment methods. Retrospective, single-time assessments are unable to capture the complexity and variability of both pain and social contact in a detailed, longitudinal and ecologically valid way. In this opinion paper, we thus outline the status quo and potent advantages of applying modern Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) for real-life investigations of the social-pain-phenomenon – an approach to pain reduction research which has been overlooked for far too long. EMA showed reduced daily-life social activity in relation to pain. Other findings revealed increased pain and fatigue, but also increased emotional well-being following social activity. Regarding the well-known health-enhancing effects of social support, EMA has unveiled contrary effects on pain depending on the nature of social support: pain reduction through emotional support, yet pain enhancement through extensive solicitous support. Finally, EMA results imply that social effects may differ between pain syndromes. These first glimpses revealed that although the relationship between pain and social contact is undeniable, more precise and temporally accurate EMA research on different social factors is needed to further disentangle its complex nature.