Relationship between perceived injustice and recovery outcomes among individuals with musculoskeletal injuries
Supervisor: Dr. Michael Sullivan
I'm Ana Nightingale Castillo, and this year I worked with Dr. Michael Sullivan. My project examined the relationship between perceived injustice and recovery outcomes among individuals with musculoskeletal injuries at 3 points in time throughout a 6-week period. More specifically, we tested if changes in perceived injustice early in the 6-week period (time 1 - time 2) would predict changes in recovery outcomes towards the end of the 6-week period (time 2 - time 3). Measures of pain severity, depressive symptoms, and disability were used to assess recovery outcomes. We found that early changes in perceived injustice did predict late outcomes in pain severity. In short, this means that decreases in perceived injustice predicted higher pain severity later on, whereas increases in perceived injustice led to lower pain severity later on.