Endurance and Avoidance Response Patterns in Pain Patients: Application of Action Control Theory in Pain Research

Identifying pain-related response patterns and understanding underlying functional mechanisms of symptom formation and recovery are essential steps for tailoring interventions to increase the effectiveness of treatment. The focus of this study thus was to replicate pain-related avoidance and endurance response patterns associated with the Fear-Avoidance Model (FAM) and Avoidance-Endurance Model (AEM) by means of latent profile analysis. Apart from the analysis of primary and other secondary characteristics of the pain response profiles, we especially analyzed the influence of stress and action control as covariates in accordance with Action Control Theory (ACT).