Associations between parental chronic pain and self-esteem, social competence, and family cohesion in adolescent girls and boys--family linkage data from the HUNT study.

Jannike Kaasbøll,Wendy Nilsen,Ingunn Ranøyen,Marit S Indredavik,Stian Lydersen

doi:10.1186/s12889-015-2164-9

Abstract

BackgroundParental chronic pain has been associated with adverse outcomes in offspring. However, knowledge on individual and family resilience factors in adolescent offspring of chronic pain sufferers is scarce. This study thus aimed to investigate the associations between parental chronic pain and self-esteem, social competence, and family cohesion levels reported by adolescent girls and boys.MethodsBased on cross-sectional surveys from the Nord Trøndelag Health Study (the HUNT 3 study), the study used independent self-reports from adolescents aged 13 to 18 years (n = 3227) and their parents and conducted separate linear regression analyses for girls and boys.ResultsConcurrent maternal and paternal chronic pain was associated with reduced self-esteem, social competence, and family cohesion in girls. Moreover, maternal chronic pain was associated with higher social competence in boys and reduced self-esteem in girls. The majority of the observed associations were significantly different between girls and boys. Paternal chronic pain was not found to be associated with child outcomes.ConclusionsThe findings indicate that the presence of both maternal and paternal chronic pain could be a potential risk factor for lower levels of individual and family resilience factors reported by girls. Further research on the relationship between parental pain and sex-specific offspring characteristics, including positive resilience factors, is warranted. The study demonstrates the importance of targeting the entire family in chronic pain care.

Highlights

Parental chronic pain has been associated with adverse outcomes in offspring
Individual and family factors – sex differences within the parental chronic pain gruop Self-esteem scores were significantly lower for girls than for boys in all parental chronic pain groups: maternal chronic pain group (M-group), t(542) = −8.47, p < .001 (Cohen’s d = −0.73); paternal chronic pain group (F-group), t(479) = −6.24, p = .048 (Cohen’s d = −0.18); concurrent maternal and paternal chronic pain group (MF-group), t(226) = −4.74, p < .001 (Cohen’s d = −0.59); and no parental chronic pain group, t(1780) = −10.12, p < .001 (Cohen’s d = −0.48)
In the present study, we explored the association between parental chronic pain and individual and family resilience factors reported by adolescent girls and boys

Summary

Introduction

Parental chronic pain has been associated with adverse outcomes in offspring. knowledge on individual and family resilience factors in adolescent offspring of chronic pain sufferers is scarce. We have previously demonstrated associations between concurrent maternal and paternal chronic pain and symptoms of anxiety and Resilience is defined in terms of factors that contribute to good psychological outcomes despite the presence of risk factors [12]. Individual characteristics such as high self-esteem and high social competence and familial characteristics such as family cohesion are considered resilience factors [13], and high levels of these factors are considered crucial for children’s ability to cope with life stressors [14,15,16,17,18]. Self-esteem, which refers to positive or negative self-evaluations [19], has been reported to protect against the damaging effects of a wide variety of risk factors, such as stress and depression [15, 20].

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