A new approach to capturing pain disclosure in daily life in-person and online.

ABSTRACT

This feasibility study employed a new approach to capturing pain disclosure in face-to-face and online interactions, using a newly developed tool. In Study 1, 13 rheumatoid arthritis and 52 breast cancer patients wore the Electronically Activated Recorder to acoustically sample participants' natural conversations. Study 2 obtained data from two publicly available online social networks fibromyalgia (343,439 posts) and rheumatoid arthritis (12,430 posts). Pain disclosure, versus non-pain disclosure, posts had a greater number of replies, and greater engagement indexed by language style matching. These studies yielded novel, multimethod evidence of how pain disclosure unfolds in naturally occurring social contexts in everyday life.