The biopsychosocial approach to chronic pain: Scientific advances and future directions.

The prevalence and cost of chronic pain is a major physical and mental health care problem in the United States today. As a result, there has been a recent explosion of research on chronic pain, with significant advances in better understanding its etiology, assessment, and treatment. The purpose of the present article is to provide a review of the most noteworthy developments in the field. The biopsychosocial model is now widely accepted as the most heuristic approach to chronic pain. With this model in mind, a review of the basic neuroscience processes of pain (the bio part of biopsychosocial), as well as the psychosocial factors, is presented. This spans research on how psychological and social factors can…

• UD
  U.S. Department of Defense

  Award: DAMD17-03-1-0055
• NI
  National Institutes of Health

  Award: 1K05-MH071892; 2R01 DE 010713; 2R01 MH 046452
• NI
  National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases

  Award: AR44724; AR47298