The influence on patients' pain intensity ratings of antecedent reinforcement of pain talk or well talk.

This study sought to determine whether positive verbal reinforcement for pain talk or well talk could effectively influence chronic pain patients' subsequent ratings of pain intensity. Four female chronic pain inpatients were each exposed over seven consecutive days to two conditions within an alternating treatments design. Inter-rater reliability analysis from the audiotapes on occurrences of pain and well talk, verbal reinforcement and appropriate reinforcement of verbal behavior across conditions resulted in agreement values from 91 to 100%. Findings revealed that subjects' pain intensity ratings were consistently and significantly lower after verbally reinforcing well talk compared with verbally reinforcing pain talk.