| Summary: | Despite the increasing acceptance of biopsychosocial models of pain and
multidisciplinary treatments for pain, relatively little is known about the specific
psychological variables and social processes related to postoperative pain in children,
especially in an outpatient setting. The present study examined demographic, medical,
and psychological predictors of children's pain and parents' administration of pain
medication. Two hundred and thirty-six families with children aged 2 to 12 undergoing
day surgery participated in the study. This included a subset of 100 children aged 6 to
12, who were asked to complete self-report measures of anxiety, expected pain, coping
style, and pain. Parents of all children completed measures of expected pain, expected
benefit from medication, perspective taking, and negative attitudes towards analgesics.
Parents and school-aged children completed pain diaries on the day of surgery and two
days following surgery. The prevalence of clinically significant pain was somewhat
lower than in previous studies, but both pain and undertreatment (parents who gave less
than the recommended amount of pain medication) remained common. Predictors of
pain were examined by multiple regression, using data from the subset of 100 children
aged 6 to 12. More intense pain was related to more invasive surgery, a constellation of
analgesic-related variables (more doses of analgesia given, the use of a regional block,
the use of local infiltration), high anxiety, high expectations of pain, and a tendency to
cope with pain by acting out and catastrophizing. Predictors of dosing were examined by
multiple regression, using data from the entire sample of 236 children. Parents gave
more medication when their children had invasive surgery and high levels of pain, when
they expected a lot of pain, and when they were relatively unconcerned about the
negative effects of pain medication. In each case, the psychological variables, entered as
a block, were significant predictors of pain even after controlling for demographic and
medical variables. Health care providers should be aware of psychological factors
predicting pain, as they may help to identify families that are at "high risk" for pain and
undermedication. In addition, the variables identified in this study are appropriate targets
for further research on psychological factors that cause, mediate or contribute to pain
processes, and as such may contribute to the development of theoretical models of pain
and pain management. === Arts, Faculty of === Psychology, Department of === Graduate
|
|---|
