Dear collegues,

Chronic pain has beliefs that may influence pain magnitude, acceptance of pain, adherence to treatment and incapacity worsening. Among them, there are beliefs of healing, solicitude, self-efficacy when coping with pain, and fear of pain and movement avoidance1-5. Beliefs are pre-existing, stable and culturally learned notions about situations, events, people and ideas. The way in which we “under-stand ” something and the meanings we attribute to it influence our emotions and behaviors with regard to such situations, ideas and people1,2. Fear of movement is called kinesiophobia by some authors and is a situation where individuals develop exacerbated fear because they believe that movement is the cause of pain and of injury worsening, so they start avoiding movement and emphasizing immobility behaviors which result in further incapacity, dependence and disuse6. Immobility in acute and chronic pain has different reasons. In acute pain, immobility aims at healing the injury, is temporary and adaptive. In chronic pain, immobility is not justified because very often there is no injury to heal, the painful condition is prolonged and immobility leads to further functional, emotional and social disorders. Not all chronic pain individuals develop exacerbated fear of movement, and some may also deal with pain and physical activity in an adaptive manner. If painful experience is not perceived as a threat, it may be faced by the individual. There is maladaptive cop-ing when, after an injury and painful experience, catastrophic thoughts lead to fear of pain, to movement avoidance behaviors, to decreased daily activities and increased dependence. If movement avoidance behaviors become persistent, there are musculoskeleta