Exploring justice issues in chronic pain: sufferer and partner perspectives

Within the field of chronic pain, there is an established literature on the impact of specific pain beliefs on coping and adjustment. However, less is known about the role of other beliefs in pain, including beliefs about justice that could influence and be influenced by such a potentially negative experience. Recently, our own quantitative research has found that beliefs about the justness of personal and general life-events have implications for psychological well-being in chronic pain. The current research will take this work forward by qualitatively examining, through group discussions, the specific nature of justice and injustice beliefs concerning fairness, deservingness and entitlement, from the perspective of the chronic pain sufferer and also from the perspective of their spouse or partner who might be affected by their significant other's pain. To be as inclusive as possible, justice beliefs across lower, middle and upper socioeconomic areas will be explored. Questionnaires and a developed justice statements sorting task will be completed in a quantitative study phase. The aims of the study are to (1) compare justice beliefs within and across participant groups (2) examine patterns and themes among justice statements and (3) investigate physical and psychological outcomes in this context.