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Abstract
Patients with chronic pain are often prescribed opioid medications for pain management, and opioid misuse is a deadly problem in the United States. The Common-Sense Model theorizes that patients are more likely to adhere to treatments when they believe that their behavior will be helpful to their health. The purpose of this study was to test whether patients’ risk of opioid misuse was related to their protective pain beliefs, threat-related pain beliefs, and their beliefs about their opioid medications. The study tested the following hypotheses: threat-related pain beliefs and protective pain beliefs have an indirect effect on risk of opioid misuse through beliefs about opioid pain medication when controlling for depression. The sample included 297 participants in the U.S. recruited from Prolific, an online crowdsourcing website. Participants were mostly female, working, insured people with back pain and an average age of 40.17 years (SD = 15.10). When combined into a single mediator, concern and necessity beliefs about opioids did not have significant relationships with any of the other variables in the model and did not show a significant indirect effect. However, the indirect effect of protective pain beliefs on opioid misuse risk through concern beliefs about opioids, and the indirect effect of threat-related pain beliefs on opioid misuse risk through necessity beliefs about opioids were significant. The four predictors explained 35% of the variance of opioid misuse risk. Discussion includes the study’s theoretical and practical implications, limitations, strengths, and ideas for future research.
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