Latent classes of chronic pain self-efficacy and their relationship with self-management stages in patients with rheumatoid ar-thritis

LIN Aidi; LI Li; CHEN Jiali; HE Yi; PAN Xia; TANG Juan

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1671-315x.2025.10.003

Abstract：Objective To explore the latent classes of chronic pain self-efficacy and their relationship with self-management stages in patients with rheumatoid arthritis(RA).Methods A total of 255 RA patients from the rheumatology departments of 3 hospitals were investi-gated by using the general information questionnaire,Chronic Pain Self-Efficacy Scale,Pain Stages of Change Questionnaire,Disease Activity Scores with 28-Joint Counts and Pain Catastrophizing Scale.The latent profile analysis was employed to identify distinct latent classes of self-efficacy.The multivariate Logistic regression was used to analyze influencing factors,and a generalized linear mixed model was applied to compare differences in self-management stage distributions across the latent classes.Results The total score of chronic pain self-efficacy in RA patients was(73.62±26.42).Three latent classes were identified:the low efficacy-low pain management group(28.24%),the moderate efficacy-low symptom coping group(26.27%)and the high efficacy-high pain management group(45.49%).Gender,pain intensity,disease activity and pain catastrophizing were significant factors that influencing the self-efficacy classification(all P＜0.05).The distribution of self-management stages significantly differed among the latent classes(P＜0.05),with the low efficacy-low pain management group predomi-nantly in the precontemplation stage.Conclusion Chronic pain self-efficacy in RA patients is at a moderate level with significant population heterogeneity,and distinct latent classes are closely associated with self-management stages.It recommends to developing individualized inter-vention strategies based on different category characteristics that enhance self-efficacy and promote the progression of self-management stages.