Navil Sethna1, Alina Agamov1, Cindy Wong1, Kelly Smith1, Christine B. Sieberg1
1) United States
Background and Aims: This study compared mother, father, and child self-reported pain sensitivity and psychosocial functioning during an intensive pediatric pain rehabilitation treatment. Little is known about changes in child sensory functioning during pain treatment and how it correlates with psychosocial and physical functioning changes. We sought to determine the underlying sensitivity profile for children and their parents, how parent’s sensitivity relates to child pain, sensitivity, or psychosocial function, and whether both child and parent pain sensitivity improves over the course of treatment.
Methods: Twenty children with chronic pain and their parents were enrolled in an intensive pediatric pain rehabilitation center. Children completed measures of pain sensitivity, fear of pain, pain catastrophizing, functional disability, and current and usual pain ratings at admission and discharge. Parents completed measures of pain sensitivity, fear of pain, and pain catastrophizing.
Results: Bivariate correlations and one-way ANOVAs were used to assess change over time. Fear of pain and pain catastrophizing decreased from admission to discharge for mothers, fathers, and children. Functional disability and pain ratings decreased from admission to discharge for children. Pain sensitivity decreased for fathers and children from admission to discharge, but increased for mothers. There was no correlation between pain sensitivity and psychosocial variables and no significant main effect for time.
Conclusions: Results from this pilot indicate the importance of considering biopsychosocial variables when assessing pain treatment outcomes. A larger sample is needed to further explore the relationship between these variables and is currently underway.
Acknowledgments/Disclosure: This investigation was supported by a Boston Children’s Hospital Career Development Fellowship Award to CBS, an NIH Grant to CBS (NIGMS 1K23GM123372-01), and the Sara Page Mayo Endowment for Pediatric Pain Research and Treatment and the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital.
