Lower pain thresholds in women with chronic pelvic pain: recognizing the role of anxiety and depression as part of person-centered approaches to treatment

Liana Barbaresco Gomide, Mary Lourdes Montenegro, Antônio Alberto Nogueira, Omero Benedicto poli Poli, Júlio César Rosa e Silva, Francisco José Cândido dos Reis
In: the International Journal of Person-Centered Medicine · 2012 · vol. 2(2) , pp. 271–278 · doi:10.5750/ijpcm.v2i2.225 · W95841976
article OA: closed CC0 ⤵ 4 in-corpus citations
View on OpenAlex View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by gemini-2.5-flash-lite, 2026-06-19 ⓘ

Women with chronic pelvic pain exhibited lower pain thresholds compared to controls, with anxiety and depression significantly correlated with these reduced thresholds.

One-sentence paraphrase of the abstract; not a substitute for reading it. No clinical advice. How this works

Abstract

Aims and objectives: The interdisciplinary approach for managing chronic pelvic pain is based on the foundation that pain perception is not only linked to peripheral nociceptive stimuli, but also strongly influenced by a combination of modulating factors.  We performed a cross-sectional study to compare pain thresholds in women with chronic pelvic pain versus healthy controls, analyzing the influence of anxiety and depression in the thresholds. Methods: A total of 43 women with chronic pelvic pain and 20 healthy female volunteers were evaluated using transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation. The intensity of clinical pain was measured by the visual analogue scale and the McGill pain questionnaire and the presence of anxiety and depression was verified by the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. Results: The median for the pain thresholds in the study and control groups was 11,66 and 13,3 (p = 0.0009). There was a significant correlation between the visual analogue scale and pain response (r = -0.42, p = 0.005). There was also a significant correlation between pain threshold and anxiety (r = -0.49, p = 0.001) and between depression and pain threshold (r = - 0,46 p = 0.001). Conclusion: Our findings suggest that women with chronic pelvic pain have lower experimental pain thresholds, and this may be influenced by anxiety and depression. We therefore contend that assessments of anxiety and depression should form part of the person-centered approach to the management of chronic pelvic pain.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Condition tags

chronic_pelvic_pain

Citation neighborhood

Papers in the corpus that this work cites (lower rings, blue) and that cite this one (upper rings, green). Dot size scales with the paper's in-corpus citation count — bigger dot = more influential within the endo/adeno field. Click a dot to open that paper. [ expand to 2 hops ] — adds papers reached through this work's immediate citers/citees. Heavier; up to 60 extra dots.

References (46)

Cited by (3)

Source provenance

openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK