Both Gender and Agonistic Experience Affect Perceived Pain during the Cold Pressor Test.

Pierluigi Diotaiuti,Thaìs Cristina Siqueira,Alexandro Andrade,Stefano Corrado,Angelo Rodio,Elisa Langiano,Lavinia Falese,Stefania Mancone,Marco Palombo

doi:10.3390/ijerph19042336

Abstract

Background. Differences in pain perception in athletes have recently been highlighted in the literature. Objectives. To compare gender ratings of perceived pain in athletes with low and high agonistic experiences (N = 200) using the Cold Pressor Test (CPT). Methods. A three-way repeated measures ANOVA to assess both the effects of the athletes’ gender and lower vs. higher agonistic experiences in the intensity of perceived pain at the beginning of the cold box hand immersion (L0) and after a 90 s interval (L1). Results. There was a statistically significant interaction effect between the level of the agonistic experience and gender in the two moments: p < 0.001; ηp2 = 0.266; F(1,49) = 9.771. Simple main effects analysis showed a significative difference for females at L0: F(1,99) = 93.567, p < 0.025, partial η2 = 0.302) and for males at L1: F(1,99) = 173.420, p < 0.025, partial η2 = 0.666. At the initial moment of CPT, the female athletes showed significantly higher perceived intensity than males, regardless of their experience level. After a 90 s interval, a significantly lower pain perception effect associated with the increased competitive experience of male athletes was observed. Female athletes did not appear to benefit from the experience effect on their pain tolerance. Conclusions. The study confirmed a significant difference in pain perception associated with the athletes’ gender and agonistic experience. Separate explanations related to the pattern of pain inhibition and the acquired reduction in pain sensitivity are reported.

Highlights

Several studies have shown that athletes generally perceive less pain than nonathletes [1,2], and current contributions provide evidence that antinociceptive effects are dependent on the intensity of exercise [3]
Several studies have investigated the relationship between gender and pressure pain sensitivity, and most results found that females have significantly lower pain thresholds than males [8,9,10]
Among these, following a classification conducted through cluster analysis to distinguish a group with more competitive experience from a second group consisting of athletes with less competitive experience, and wanting to balance the number of males and females in the two groups, in the end, 43 student athletes booked on the list did not participate

Summary

Introduction

Several studies have shown that athletes generally perceive less pain than nonathletes [1,2], and current contributions provide evidence that antinociceptive effects are dependent on the intensity of exercise [3]. Research has shown gender differences in pain perception [4,5]. Several studies have investigated the relationship between gender and pressure pain sensitivity, and most results found that females have significantly lower pain thresholds than males [8,9,10]. Gender differences could be explained with the help of a multifactorial model of pain, according to which biological, psychological and social factors interact in the perception of pain [13,14]. It appears that gender-role expectations of pain do play a part in

Results

Discussion

Conclusion