Expressed Beliefs about the Cause of Pain in a Pediatric Population: A Qualitative Study (original) (raw)

Children’s Beliefs about Pain: An Exploratory Analysis

Children

Functional abdominal pain (FAP) is one of the most common childhood medical complaints, associated with significant distress and impairment. Little is known about how children understand their pain. Do they attribute it to personal weakness? Do they perceive pain as having global impact, affecting a variety of activities? How do they cope with pain? We explored the pain beliefs of 5- to 9-year-old children with FAP using a novel Teddy Bear Interview task in which children answered questions about a Teddy bear’s pain. Responses were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Results indicate that the majority of young children with FAP are optimistic about pain outcomes. Children generated many types of coping strategies for Teddy’s pain and adjusted their calibration of Teddy’s pain tolerance dependent on the activity being performed. Early warning signs also emerged: a subset of children were pessimistic about Teddy’s pain, and several children identified coping strategies that, wh...

The Development and Preliminary Validation of the Pediatric Survey of Pain Attitudes

American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, 2012

Objective-Biopsychosocial models of pain hypothesize patient attitudes and beliefs about pain play a key role in adjustment to chronic pain. The purpose of this study was to facilitate research testing the utility of biopsychosocial models in youths with physical disabilities by developing and testing the validity of a measure of pain-related beliefs that could be used with younger patients. Design-One hundred and four youths with physical disabilities were administered, via interview, a measure of pain-related beliefs developed for youths with chronic pain-the Pediatric Survey of Pain Attitudes (Peds-SOPA)-and a modified Brief Pain Inventory Pain Interference scale (BPI). Results-Item analyses yielded a 29-item pain belief attribution that assessed seven belief domains. The internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) of the subscales varied from good to excellent (.67-.92). Pearson correlations between Peds-SOPA and the modified BPI showed moderate associations between pain beliefs and pain interference for the Medical Cure (r = .29), Emotion (r = .27), and Disability (r = .36) scales. Conclusions-The findings indicate the Peds-SOPA scales are reliable, and a subset of the scales is associated with an important pain-related domain (pain interference), providing preliminary support for the validity of the Peds-SOPA scales.

“You Just Have to Make the Pain Go Away”—Children's Experiences of Pain Management

Pain Management Nursing, 2008

This paper reports a study of the descriptions young children use and their expectations for pain management interventions experienced during hospitalization. The alleviation of children's pain has been investigated through the eyes of health care providers and parents, but the children's own perspective has largely been ignored. To date, there is a growing tendency to listen to the children when making final decisions on treatment in child health care. The evidence shows that children should be regarded as experts on their pain to maximize the options for pain management and to provide high-quality care. Forty-four children who were inpatients in four pediatric units in a university hospital participated in the study. The data were collected by means of a qualitative interview with the children until theoretic saturation was reached. The data analysis was based on inductive content analysis. The findings indicate that the children used multiple strategies while trying to deal with their pains during hospitalization and expected professional competence from health care professionals. Moreover, the children valued the care and attention provided by significant others. When managing pain in hospitalized children with a wide diversity of sources, the complexity of pain as a physiologic, psychologic, social, and cultural phenomenon must not be overlooked.

Understanding Caregiver Judgments of Infant Pain: Contrasts of Parents, Nurses and Pediatricians

Pain Research and Management, 2008

BACKGROUND: Research suggests that caregivers’ beliefs pertaining to infant pain and which infant pain cues are perceived to be important play an integral role in pediatric pain assessment and management.OBJECTIVES: Following a recent quasi-experimental study reporting on caregiver background and age differences in actual infant pain judgments, the present study clarified these findings by analyzing caregivers’ pain beliefs and the cues they use to make pain assessments, and by examining how the wording of belief questions influenced caregivers’ responses.METHODS: After making pain judgments based on video footage of infants between two and 18 months of age receiving immunizations, parents, nurses and pediatricians were required to respond to questionnaires regarding pain beliefs and importance of cues.RESULTS: Parents generally differed from pediatricians. Parents tended to have less optimal beliefs regarding medicating the youngest infants, were more influenced by question wording...

Pain Beliefs and Quality of Life in Young People with Disabilities and Bothersome Pain

The Clinical journal of pain, 2017

Pain beliefs have been hypothesized to play an important role in pediatric pain. However, research examining the associations between pain-related beliefs and measures of function in youths with disabilities is limited. Eighty-four youths (mean age=14.26 y; SD=3.27) with physical disabilities who indicated they also had bothersome pain were interviewed and asked to rate their average pain intensity in the past week, and to complete measures of pain-related beliefs and health-related quality of life. A number of pain beliefs were associated with different physical and psychosocial function domains, although different beliefs appeared to play different roles, depending on the function domain examined. Across all of the health-related quality of life domains studied, a belief that pain is influenced by one's emotions was associated with lower levels of function. No differences were found in pain beliefs related to age. In addition, a small difference in pain beliefs was found for s...