Are all pain tolerance tasks the same? Convergent validity of four behavioral pain tolerance tasks, self-reported capability for suicide, and lifetime self-injurious behaviors

Objectives: Discrepancies persist regarding the extent to which different pain measures provide similar information and relate to capability for suicide and self-injurious behaviors. This study examined pain threshold, tolerance, and persistence across four modalities (cold, heat, pressure, shock) and assessed associations with self-reported capability for suicide, non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI), and suicide attempts.

Methods: A sample of 211 students who reported lifetime suicidal ideation completed four behavioral pain tasks and self-reported on capability for suicide, NSSI, and self-injurious behaviors.

Results: All pain thresholds, tolerances, and persistences were positively correlated across the four tasks. Pain facets were related to self-reported capability for suicide with small effect sizes but generally did not differ across suicide attempt or NSSI histories.

Conclusions: Pain thresholds, tolerances, and persistences demonstrated convergent validity across the four modalities, suggesting that these tasks provide similar information. Although the relation between pain and self-injurious behaviors remains unclear, these tasks can generally be used interchangeably.