Correlational SCI pain study

Greetings,

I have an exciting opportunity to contribute to a pilot study on the experience of pain in adults with spinal cord injuries.

Background: Pain is a typical complaint for the population, but little is known about the prevalence (estimates of chronic pain range from 30-75% of the population) and previous studies to 'treat' pain have met with minimal success (both psychological tx and pharmacological). An MD who runs a new pain clinic in an SCI unit (for outpatients and inpatients) is discouraged by the low turnout of patients at his clinic and thinks that the patients under-report their pain and/or have become frustrated with previous efforts to have their pain treated (that is anecdotal). He's particularly interested in learning about his population and their experience with pain and eventually improving pain management services for them.

I have a minimal amount of experience with the population and slightly less with ACT (Have worked with applied behavior analysis, have read chapters and will attend a training with Kelly Wilson in Sept/Oct). When first asked to pariticipate, I jumped at the chance and have since read a lot of McCracken/Eccleston's work (most papers on the CPAQ) and some of Dahl's work.

I have advocated for the inclusion of the CPAQ and the pain catastrophizing scale. I hope to replicate previous correlational findings demonstrating that greater acceptance of pain is related to lower pain reports/less anxiety/less disability (McCracken 1998, 2003). I have asked to include the catastrophizing measure to further demonstrate the importance of psychological factors on the experience of pain.

I'm currently a pre-doc intern and I sort of fell into this opportunity. I feel fortunate to have been asked to collaborate so much on the project already and everyone has been receptive to my input (i.e., it's moving forward). Right about now, I figure that I need to consult with as many people as possible.

So, does anyone have any suggestions/comments about the proposed study? Resources are limited, the study will be cross-sectional, we estimate N=100-150.

Thanks in advance.