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

Leveraging two waves of data from a diverse and international sample of individuals across 22 countries and one territory, we will conduct a longitudinal study that will explore whether combinations of pain and suffering levels in Wave 1 are associated with well-being outcomes in Wave 2. The focal exposure from wave 1 for this analysis will be a variable of pain-suffering with four categories: 1) No pain and no suffering, 2) A lot of pain and no suffering, 3) No pain and a lot of suffering, and 4) a lot of pain and a lot of suffering. This variable will be created by concatenating the individual pain and suffering variables. This variable will yield an approximate sample size of 20,000 individuals. We hypothesize that pain-suffering will have significant and varied associations with subsequent well-being outcomes assessed approximately one year later. This study aims to provide insights into the role of pain and suffering co-occurrence in various aspects of well-being.