predicting pain catastrophizing based on pain anxiety symptoms and cognitive flexibility in cancer patients

Aims: the purpose of this study was to investigate the prediction of pain catastrophizing based on pain anxiety symptoms and cognitive flexibility in cancer patients method and materials: in this cross-sectional study all cancer patients in tehran in 2021-22 were the target population. among this population 250 cancer patients were selected via candidate and at reach sampling method. then the selected patients completed the paknejad et al.`s pain anxiety symptoms (2014), sullivan et al. `s pain catastrophizing pain (1995), and dennis et al.`s (2010) cognitive flexibility questionnaire. for data analysis, pearson correlation and step by step regression analysis were used. data were analyzed by spss-24. findings: there was a relationship between cognitive flexibility and pain anxiety symptoms with pain catastrophizing (p0.01>). the relationship between pain catastrophizing with pain anxiety symptoms was positive. however, there was a negative relationship between pain catastrophizing and cognitive flexibility. moreover, catastrophizing pain could be predicted based on anxiety symptoms and cognitive flexibility. conclusion: to conclude, it seems in cancer patients some cognitive factors have important roles in pain catastrophizing as pain anxiety symptoms and cognitive flexibility.