Fear of pain

This bachelor thesis deals with the important relationship between pain, fear of pain and an avoidance behavior of patiens. The thesis is devided into two parts - theoretical part and empirical part. The first part defines the basic concepts such as pain, pain behavior, anxiety, fear and avoidance behavior. This thesis explains what is normal fear and which fear is already phobia. There are described differences in detail between anxiety and fear, which are often confused with each other. It brifly desribes two theories of anxiety and fear - Rachman's and Eysenck's. It adds four models of relations between fear and chronic pain that attempt to answer the question, such as bio-psycho-social mechanisms fear of pain may affect patient behavior. In conclusion, the theoretical section describes the methods of evaluation the fear of pain and strategy how to overcome it and not to give up it. The empirical section is focused on the intensity of fear in patient with chronic pain depending on gender, age and their current pain. There are also researched differences in the use of strategy of control over fear among men and women. Finally we found which gender use more avoidance behaviour of painful activities and movements. For processing of this issue and determine the objectives was chosen quantitative..