Personal Projects Analysis (PPA) offers an alternative approach to studying adaptation to illnesses. This study investigated adaptation to low back pain using PPA to examine the relationship between participants' perceptions of pain, and their functioning and well-being. Participants appraised their five most important projects on 26 dimensions, such as project value, success and difficulty. Factor analyses of the project ratings yielded five dispositions (Integrity, Personal Agency, Social Visibility, Pain Salience and Stressfulness). In regression analysis all five dispositions significantly predicted Physical and Social Function, Disruption of Roles, and Well-being. `Pain Salience' was the strongest predictor of functional outcomes, and `Stressfulness' was the best predictor of well-being.
Affleck, G., Tennen, H., Urrows, S., Hall, C., Higgins, P., Abeles, M. et al. (1998). Fibromyalgia and women's pursuit of personal goals: A daily process analysis. Health Psychology, 17, 40-47.
2.
Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
3.
Brunstein, J.C. (1993). Personal goals and subjective well-being: A longitudinal study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 1061-1070.
4.
Cantor, N., Norem, J.K., Neidenthal, P.M., Langston, C.A., & Brower, A.M. (1987). Life tasks, self-concept ideals, and cognitive strategies in a life transition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 1178-1191.
5.
Crombez, G., Vlaeyen, J.W.S., Heuts, P.H.T. G., & Lysens, R. (1999). Pain-related fear is more disabling than pain itself: Evidence on the role of pain-related fear in chronic back pain disability. Pain, 80, 329-339.
6.
Devins, G.M., Orme, C.M., Costello, C.G., Binik, Y.M., Frizzell, B., Stam, H.J. et al. (1988). Measuring depressive symptoms in illness populations: Psychometric properties of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) Scale. Psychology and Health, 2, 139-156.
7.
Elliot, A.J., & Sheldon, K.M. (1998). Avoidance personal goals and the personality-illness relationship. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 75, 1282-1299.
8.
Karoly, P. (1993). Mechanisms of self-regulation: A systems view . Annual Review of Psychology, 44, 23-52.
9.
Karoly, P., & Ruehlman, L.S. (1996). Motivational implications of pain: Chronicity, psychological distress, and work goals construal in a national sample of adults. Health Psychology, 15, 383-390.
10.
Kori, S.H., Miller, R.P., & Todd, D.D. (1990). Kinisophobia: A new view of chronic pain behavior . Pain Management, Jan/Feb, 35-43.
11.
Lawton, M.P., Moss, M.S., & Winter, L. (2002). Motivation in later life: Personal projects and well-being. Psychology and Aging, 17, 539-547.
12.
Little, B.R. (1989). Personal Projects Analysis: Trivial pursuits, magnificent obsessions, and the search for coherence. In D. M. Buss & N. Cantor (Eds.), Personality psychology (pp. 15-31). New York: Springer-Verlag.
13.
Little, B.R. (1993). Personal projects and the distributed self: Aspects of a conative psychology. In J. Suls (Ed.), Psychology perspectives on the self (vol. IV, pp. 157-185). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
14.
Little, B.R. (1998). Personal project pursuits: Dimensions and dynamics of personal meaning. In P. T. P. Wong & P. S. Fry (Eds.), Handbook of personal meaning: Theory, research, and applications (pp. 193-212). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
15.
Little, B.R. (1999). Personality and motivation: Personal action and the conative evolution. In L. A. Pervin & O. P. John (Eds.), Handbook of personality, theory and research (2nd edn, pp. 501-524). New York: Guilford Press.
16.
Little, B.R., & Chambers, N.C. (2004). Personal project pursuit: On human doings and well-beings. In W. M. Cox & E. Klinger (Eds.), Handbook of motivational counseling (pp. 65-82). London: Wiley & Sons.
17.
May, C.R., Rose, M.J., & Johnstone, F.C.W. (2000). Dealing with doubt: How patients account for non-specific chronic low back pain. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 49, 223-225.
18.
McCombe, P.F., Fairbank, J.C., Cockersole, B.C., & Pynsent, P.B. (1989). Reproducibility of physical signs in low back pain. Spine, 14, 908-918.
19.
McGregor, I., & Little, B.R. (1998). Personal projects, happiness and meaning: On doing well and being yourself. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 494-512.
20.
Pavot, W., & Diener, E. (1993). Review of the satisfaction with life scale. Psychological Assessment, 5, 164-172.
21.
Peterman, A., & Lecci, L. (2006). Personal projects in health and illness. In B. Little, K. Salmela-Aro & S. Phillips (Eds.), Personal projects pursuit: Goals, actions and human flourishing (pp. 329-353). Mahwah, NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
22.
Pincus, T., Burton, A.K., Vogel, S., & Field, A.P. (2002). A systematic review of the psychological predictors of chronicity/disability in prospective cohorts of low back pain [Review article] . Spine, 27, E109-E120.
23.
Radloff, L.S. (1977). The CES-D scale: A self-report depression scale for research in the general population. Applied Psychological Measurement, 1, 385-401.
24.
Salmela-Aro, K., & Nurmi, J.E. (1997). Goal content, well-being and life context during transition to university: A longitudinal study. International Journal of Behavioural Development, 20, 471-491.
25.
Spicer, J., & Chamberlain, K. (1996). Developing psychosocial theory in health psychology: Problems and prospects. Journal of Health Psychology, 1, 161-171.
26.
Staiger, T.O., Gaster, B., Sullivan, M.D., & Deyo, R.A. (2003). Systematic review of antidepressants in the treatment of chronic low back pain. Spine, 28, 2540-2545.
27.
Van den Hoogen, H., Koes, B.W., van Eijk, J.T., Bouter, L.M., & Devillé, W. (1997). Pain and health status of primary care patients with low back pain. Journal of Family Medicine, 44, 187-192.
28.
Vlaeyen, J.W.S., Kole-Snijder, A.M.J., Boeren, R.G.B., & van Eek, H. (1995). Fear of movement/re-injury in chronic low back pain and its relation to behavioral performance. Pain, 62, 363-372.
