Lauren Campbell1, Rebecca Pillai Riddell1, Robert Cribbie1, Hartley Garfield1, Saul Greenberg1
1) Canada
Background and Aims: Research has consistently found that caregiver and child variables play an important role in pediatric pain. The aim of this study was to model the prediction of preschooler coping outcomes (i.e. pain-related distress) during vaccinations. Caregiver and child variables from the 12-month and preschool vaccinations were included.
Methods: The data is part of an ongoing longitudinal study that followed caregivers and children from infancy to preschool. Two separate path models (Minute 1 and Minute 2 post-needle) were estimated using data from the 12-month vaccination (n=548), the preschool vaccination (n=302), and a preschool psychological assessment (n=172).
Results: Caregiver proximal soothing at the 12-month vaccination positively predicted caregiver coping-promoting behaviors at Minute 1 (B = .32, p < .001) which predicted higher pain-related distress at Minute 2 (B = .32, p < .01). Post-hoc correlations indicated that, prior to the first needle, caregiver coping-promoting behaviors were negatively concurrently related to pain-related distress (r = -.15, p = .037) and caregiver distress-promoting behaviors were positively concurrently related to pain-related distress (r = .42, p < .001). At Minute 1 and 2, caregiver distress-promoting behaviors were positively related to pain-related distress (r = .45, p < .001, r = .38, p < .001, respectively).
Conclusions: A consistency is suggested between caregiver behaviors viewed as helpful in infancy (i.e. proximal soothing) and parallel caregiver behaviors viewed as helpful in preschool (i.e. “coping-promoting”). Caregivers are encouraged to avoid distress-promoting behaviors. Enacting coping promoting behaviors and avoiding distress-promoting behaviors is important to maintain as long as the child is expressing distress. Results suggest that these caregiver behaviors do not appear to ‘pay forward’ to a subsequent time epoch.
Acknowledgments/Disclosures: This research was funded by support from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Canadian Foundation for Innovation. There are no conflicts of interest.
