Resilience and Mental Health in Chronic Pelvic Pain
Student Special Interest Group (SSIG)
Pelvic pain has a devastating impact on physical, psychological, and social well-being. Health care costs and employment challenges exacerbate these burdens, leading to significant stress and reduced quality of life. Concomitant diagnoses, including fibromyalgia, low back pain, and rheumatoid arthritis, further intensify pelvic pain and need to be considered when assessing and treating patients with pelvic pain. Pelvic pain is correlated with reduced resilience in both male and female populations and is negatively correlated with work and general activity.
Additional psychological factors closely associated with pelvic pain include fear avoidance, maladaptive beliefs, catastrophic thinking, and social isolation. While negative mental health can impair tissue healing through psychoimmunological effects and decreased ability to engage in effective self-management, promoting resilience can enhance people’s ability to thrive in the face of adversity. Although people with low resilience experience higher rates of pain, fatigue, and functional limitations, higher resilience enhances self-efficacy, treatment adherence, social engagement, and life satisfaction.
During this session, we will explore interventions that enhance resilience and quality of life in people with chronic pelvic pain. We will review standardized measures of resilience and associated constructs using an integrative biopsychosocial perspective. Strategies that promote resilience and psychological wellness in people with chronic pelvic pain will be illustrated using case examples.
Objectives
- Discuss the importance of holistic, integrative assessment and tailored interventions to promote resilience, psychological wellness, and quality of life in people with chronic pelvic pain.
- Evaluate psychological factors that influence treatment adherence, functional outcomes, and quality of life in people with chronic pelvic pain.
- Identify barriers and facilitators of resilience in people with chronic pelvic pain, including physical and psychological comorbidities, as well as environmental factors and social determinants of health
- Select strategies to assess, monitor, and promote resilience and positive mental health in people with chronic pelvic pain
Speaker
Jenny Porter, PT, DPT 
Jenny Porter received her DPT from AdventHealth University in Orlando and graduated from the orthopaedic residency at Good Shepherd Penn Partners in Philadelphia. She owns a clinic in South Daytona, Florida specializing in pelvic PT. She has co-presented at CSM on promoting resilience in the chronic wound population, the relationship between wounds and the movement system, as well as acute and chronic impacts of pregnancy wounds.
Meaghan Ellis, SPT - SSIG Moderator
Registration is FREE and this live webinar is open to non-members and members.
Will this webinar be recorded?
This webinar will be recorded. Please note that the recording will be exclusively available to Academy of Pelvic Health members within 7 business days at aptapelvichealth.org/info/webinars.
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