Psychological Aspects and Quality of Life in Chronic Pain.

Pain, if not the worst, is one of the worst symptoms that a patient experiences and has a detrimental effect on the patients' quality of life [1]. Chronic pain, usually defined as lasting for a period of more than 3 months, is prevalent in a variety of diseases including peripheral neuropathy [2-8], neurodegenerative diseases [9, 10], and cancer [11]. Presence of chronic pain has an independent additional burden to patients' mental health, increasing significantly the risk of depression [12]. Successful management of pain, with both pharmacological and nonpharmacological approaches, can improve the quality of life and ameliorate patients' mental health status [13-18].

In this special issue, the readers will find ten articles, covering a wide spectrum of types of pain and types of interventions and comprising “Association of depression/anxiety symptoms with neck pain: a systematic review and meta-analysis of literature in China” by F. Liu et al.; “Pain intensity is not always associated with poorer health status: exploring the moderating role of spouse personality” by C. Suso-Ribera et al.; “Topical review: basic psychological needs in adolescents with chronic pain—a self-determination perspective” by A. Riggenbach et al.; “The mediating effect of central sensitization on the relation between pain intensity and psychological factors: a cross-sectional study with mediation analysis” by H. Shigetoh et al.; “Negative affect, type D personality, quality of life, and dysfunctional outcomes of total knee arthroplasty” by M. Vogel et al.; “Pain acceptance and its associated factors among cancer patients in mainland China: a cross-sectional study” by X. Xu et al.; “Reward processing under chronic pain from the perspective of “liking” and “wanting”: a narrative review” by X. Liu et al.; “Living with chronic pain: a qualitative study of the daily life of older people with chronic pain in Chile” by I. Rodríguez et al.; “Personality and personality disorders in medication overuse headache: a controlled study by SWAP-200” by F. Galli et al.; and “Quality of life in painful peripheral neuropathies: a systematic review” by A. Girach et al.