Relationship of Child Perceptions of Maternal Pain to Children’s Laboratory and Nonlaboratory Pain

Subhadra Evans,Jennie Ci Tsao,Lonnie K Zeltzer

doi:10.1155/2008/684269

Subhadra Evans, Jennie Ci Tsao + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.1155/2008/684269

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Abstract

Previous research has established links between parent and child pain. However, little is known about sex-specific parent-child pain relationships in a nonclinical population. A sample of 186 children aged eight to 18 years (49% female) provided information on maternal and self bodily pain, assessed by asking children about the presence and location of bodily pain experienced. Children also completed three laboratory pain tasks and reported on cold pressor pain intensity, pressure pain intensity and heat pain intensity. The presence of child-reported maternal pain was consistently correlated with daughters' bodily and laboratory pain, but not with sons' pain in bivariate analyses. Multivariate analyses controlling for child age and maternal psychological distress indicated that children of mothers with bodily pain reported more total bodily pain sites as well as greater pressure and cold pain intensity, relative to children of mothers without bodily pain. For cold pain intensity, these results differed for boys versus girls, in that daughters reporting maternal pain evidenced significantly higher cold pain intensity compared with daughters not reporting maternal pain. No such differences were found for boys. The findings suggest that children's perceptions of maternal pain may play a role in influencing children's own experience of pain, and that maternal pain models may affect boys and girls differently.

Highlights

Previous research has established links between parent and child pain
Our knowledge of the generalizability of parental pain models remains limited. It is unclear whether parents act as salient pain models for children’s pain responses across contexts, or whether pain models operate in a sex-specific manner
Studies focusing on children with existing pain conditions have reported relationships between child juvenile arthritis and parent pain history [2], with higher levels of parent bodily pain correlated with higher levels of child arthritis pain

Summary

Introduction

Previous research has established links between parent and child pain. little is known about sex-specific parent-child pain relationships in a nonclinical population. On en sait peu sur les liens spécifiques au sexe quant à la douleur chez les parents et les enfants dans une population non clinique. Cette observation laisse supposer que les perceptions des enfants quant à la douleur maternelle peut jouer un rôle dans leur propre expérience douloureuse et que les modèles douloureux maternels peuvent affecter différemment les garçons et filles. Parent-child pain relationships have emerged in the chronic pain literature, such that children who are exposed to a history of family pain are likely to report pain themselves [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Studies focusing on children with existing pain conditions have reported relationships between child juvenile arthritis and parent pain history [2], with higher levels of parent bodily pain correlated with higher levels of child arthritis pain. Parents with chronic pain conditions appear more likely than healthy parents to have children who report pain [12,13]

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