Helping your partner with chronic pain: the importance of helping motivation, received social support, and its timeliness

Abstract

Objective Like all intentional acts, social support provision varies with respect to its underlying motives. Greater autonomous or volitional motives (e.g., enjoyment, full commitment) to help individuals with chronic pain (ICPs) are associated with greater well-being benefits for the latter, as indexed by improved satisfaction of their psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The present study investigates the processes explaining why partners’ autonomous or volitional helping motivation yields these benefits. Methods A total of 134 couples, where at least one partner had chronic pain, completed a 14-day diary. Partners reported on their daily helping motives, whereas ICPs reported on their daily received support, timing of help, need-based experiences, and pain. Results On days when partners provided help for volitional motives, ICPs indicated receiving more help, which partially accounted for the effect of autonomous helping motivation on ICP need-based experiences. Timing of help moderated the effects of daily received support on ICP need-based experiences. Conclusions Findings highlight the importance of ICPs of receiving support in general and the role of timing in particular, which especially matters when there is little support being received.