Pain and Suffering Have Distinct Effects on Distress and Wellbeing: Evidence From a Longitudinal Multi-Country Analysis

Pain and suffering often co-occur, but sometimes they occur relatively independently. Little is known about whether experiencing pain without suffering might have unique implications for individual functioning compared to experiencing suffering without pain. Leveraging longitudinal data from a diverse and international sample of individuals across 22 countries and one territory (N=20,944), we explored potential differences between these concatenations of pain and suffering on 20 subsequent distress and wellbeing outcomes. Adjusting for demographic characteristics, baseline values of the respective outcome, and country fixed effects, regression analyses provided evidence suggesting that those with ‘no pain and a lot of suffering’ had worse subsequent outcomes on two composite measures of wellbeing, several specific indicators of wellbeing, and loneliness than those with ‘a lot of pain and no suffering’. This study highlights the importance of differentiating pain from suffering, with implications for research on these distinct forms of distress and for interventions aimed at promoting wellbeing.