- In more than 700 adults with chronic pain, researchers identified four distinct anger profiles that predicted how much pain and disability people reported.
- People who had high anger and a strong sense of injustice about their condition experienced more severe pain, more widespread symptoms and greater distress, both at the time of assessment and several months later.
- Anger is not always harmful, but when it mixes with feelings of being unfairly treated it can lock people into a cycle of emotional and physical suffering, suggesting that addressing these emotions should be part of pain care.
An international team led by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem recruited more than 700 adults seeking help for chronic pain.
People had a range of conditions, including musculoskeletal and neuropathic pain.
Using detailed questionnaires and a statistical method called latent profile analysis, the researchers grouped people into four anger profiles.
These profiles captured how often people felt angry, how they expressed or controlled anger and how strongly they felt that their pain represented an unfair loss or wrongdoing.
A subset of 242 participants were followed for about five months to see how well these anger profiles predicted future pain outcomes.
- Lower back pain could be treated with cannabis extract
- People with chronic pain comfort eat for moments of pleasure
- Viewing virtual reality scenes of nature helps pain sensitivity
What they found
Patients who reported medium to high levels of both anger and perceived injustice did worst. They had higher pain intensity, more areas of pain, more disability and more emotional distress.
Those who were able to manage anger better and who viewed their condition with less resentment tended to have better outcomes.
Crucially, the anger profiles predicted pain and disability months later, even after the researchers accounted for anxiety and depression.
In other words, how people felt about their pain, especially whether they saw it as unfair, helped explain who continued to suffer most.
What this means for people with long term pain
The authors emphasise that anger itself is not always negative.
It can be a normal signal that something is wrong and can motivate change when it is recognised and regulated.
The problem arises when anger becomes chronic and is fuelled by a sense of injustice, for example feeling abandoned by services or blamed for a condition.
For people living with painful conditions such as diabetic neuropathy or musculoskeletal problems, this research suggests that emotional support is not an optional extra.
Interventions that address anger and feelings of injustice, such as emotional awareness and expression therapies or compassion based approaches, may help reduce the long term impact of pain alongside medical treatment.
If you notice that resentment about your condition or past care is a constant background emotion, talking to your clinician about psychological support may be as important as adjusting medicines.
