Broadening the scope of paediatric intensive interdisciplinary pain treatment to promote future resilience and psychological flexibility.

Abstract

This journal recently published a paper by Wager and colleagues, entitled "Long-term outcomes of children with severe chronic pain: Comparison of former patients with a community sample" (Wager et al., in press). This paper demonstrates the lasting positive effects of intensive interdisciplinary pain treatment (IIPT) in children, and adds confidence in the duration of treatment effects through its unprecedented, controlled, 7-year follow-up design. Youth treated in IIPT are those with the most impairing pain; thus, these results are particularly encouraging, with almost 60% of the clinical sample no longer experiencing chronic pain.