Psychological and cognitive factors implicated in pain experience in women with endometriosis

Cristina Zarbo, Agostino Brugnera, Angelo Compare, Chiara Malandrino, Ilario Candeloro, Rita Secomandi, Enrico Betto, Adriano Bellia, Massimo Rabboni, Emi Bondi, Luigi Frigerio
Health care for women international · 2021 · vol. 43(1-3) , pp. 142–159 · doi:10.1080/07399332.2021.1959592 · PMID:34506264 · W3198773011
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⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-06 ⓘ

Women with high endometriosis pain severity reported more depressive symptoms, sexual distress, and catastrophizing than healthy controls, with metacognitive beliefs predicting sexual distress.

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Abstract

Sixty women with a diagnosis of endometriosis (30 with low pain severity - LP; 30 with high pain severity - HP) were evaluated at study entry (T0) and after three months (T1). At T0 they were compared for different psychological dimensions to sixty-two age-paired healthy women (CG). HP group had significantly higher scores on depressive symptomatology, sexual distress, and catastrophizing than CG, and higher scores on worry traits than LP. Metacognitive beliefs predicted sexual distress at T1, over and above pain severity. Pain affects different domains of mental health in this population. Coping strategies, metacognitive beliefs, and worry traits may modulate pain experience and psychological distress.

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Condition tags

endometriosis

MeSH descriptors

Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Metacognition Adaptation, Psychological Catastrophization Catastrophization Female Humans Pain Stress, Psychological Stress, Psychological Surveys and Questionnaires

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 (45)

Cited by (15)

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europepmc
last seen: 2026-06-11T06:19:48.454388+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-05-13T22:24:20.309598+00:00
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