PRISM: a brief screening tool to identify risk in parents of youth with chronic pain

Move&Connect-Caregivers: A virtual group intervention for caregivers of youth experiencing persisting symptoms after concussion

Caregivers play a critical role in supporting youth experiencing persisting symptoms after concussion (PSAC). However, there are limited empirically validated interventions tailored to the specific needs of caregivers, such as improving concussion knowledge and supporting psychosocial wellbeing. This study aims to describe the development of a virtual group intervention for caregivers of youth experiencing PSAC, Move&Connect-Caregivers (M&C-C), and examine its feasibility. Nine mothers participated across two M&C-C groups. Feasibility metrics and semi-structured interviews were collected and analyzed using descriptive and qualitative content analysis. Results suggest that M&C-C is a feasible intervention. By merging social support, concussion psychoeducation, and active skill building, M&C-C is meaningful for caregivers supporting their children experiencing PSAC.

Caregiver Psychological Burden in Pediatric Chronic Pain: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Associations with Caregiver Sociodemographic and Biopsychosocial Variables

OBJECTIVE

To investigate, via systematic review and meta-analysis, caregiver sociodemographic and biopsychosocial factors associated with anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress symptoms, and stress of caregivers in the pediatric chronic pain context.

METHODS

EMBASE, Medline, and PsycINFO databases were searched from their inception to the search date (April 4, 2022). Studies were included if they examined caregivers of youth with chronic pain, were published in a peer-reviewed journal and assessed at least one quantitative association between relevant variables. Qualitative and intervention studies were excluded. A total of 3,052 articles were screened. Risk of bias was assessed using the JBI Checklist for analytical cross-sectional studies. Meta-analyses were conducted using robust variance estimation for associations reported in at least three studies, as well as a narrative synthesis of the evidence.

RESULTS

Fourteen studies assessing 1,908 caregivers were included in this review. Meta-analytic results showed a positive pooled correlation coefficient between caregiver catastrophizing about their child's pain and caregiver anxiety (r = 0.51; 95% CI: 0.35-0.65; p<.01) and depression (r = 0.45; 95% CI: 0.29-0.58; p < .01). Self-blame and helplessness were related to increased caregiver anxiety (r = 0.55; 95% CI: 0.40-0.67; p<.01), but not depression. No significant relationship was found for pain-promoting behavior and anxiety or depression. The qualitative synthesis of all other eligible studies showed associations between relevant psychological burden variables and various caregiver factors, which were mainly psychosocial.

CONCLUSION

Results should be interpreted with caution due to the small number of studies. Further research is needed to get a better understanding of these relationships and to examine the causal direction of effects.

Targeting Pain Science Education in Youth With Chronic Pain: What Are the Sticking Points for Youth and Their Parents?

OBJECTIVES

An important part of providing pain science education is to first assess baseline knowledge and beliefs about pain, thereby identifying misconceptions and establishing individually-tailored learning objectives. The Concept of Pain Inventory (COPI) was developed to support this need. This study aimed to characterize the concept of pain in care-seeking youth and their parents, to examine its clinical and demographic correlates, and to identify conceptual gaps.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Following an initial interdisciplinary evaluation, a cohort of 127 youth aged 8 to 18 years, and their parents, completed a series of questionnaires.

RESULTS

Parents had slightly higher COPI scores than youth did, reflecting parents' greater alignment with contemporary pain science. The moderate positive association with older age among youth ( r =.32) suggests that COPI is sensitive to cognitive development and life experiences. Youth and parent COPI responses were weakly associated ( r =0.24), highlighting the importance of targeting the concept of pain in both groups. For both parents and youth, 'Learning about pain can help you feel less pain' was the least endorsed concept. This conceptual 'gap' is a key point of intervention that could potentially lead to greater engagement with multidisciplinary pain treatment.

DISCUSSION

The COPI appears useful for identifying conceptual gaps or 'sticking points'; this may be an important step to pre-emptively address misconceptions about pain through pain science education. Future research should determine the utility of COPI in assessing and treating youth seeking care for pain. The COPI may be a useful tool for tailoring pain science education to youth and their parents.

Using the Parent Risk Screening Measure (PRISM) to Assess Pain-Related Risk Factors in Parents of Youth Seeking Treatment for Acute Musculoskeletal Pain

OBJECTIVES

The Parent Risk Screening Measure (PRISM) rapidly assesses parent distress, psychosocial function, and behaviors associated with child pain-related dysfunction in parents of youth with chronic pain. Recognizing the importance of parent pain-related cognitions and responses to pain during the acute pain period, the current study examined the utility of the PRISM in screening parents of youth with acute pain.

METHODS

Participants were 175 parent-youth dyads taking part in a larger study examining risk and resilience in youth with acute musculoskeletal pain. Parents completed the PRISM and a battery of measures reporting on their child's pain-related disability and cognitions and behaviors in response to their child's pain. Youth reported on their pain, pain-related disability, pain-related fear, catastrophizing, and pain self-efficacy.

RESULTS

PRISM total scores ( M =2.55, SD=2.77) were correlated with many parent and child report measures (eg, protectiveness, catastrophizing, and pain-related fear), with higher scores associated with greater symptoms. Using published PRISM cutoffs, 86.9% of parents were classified as low and 13.13% as elevated risk. t tests revealed significant differences between elevated and low-risk groups on several measures. Moreover, youth of parents in the elevated risk group were more likely to meet clinical cutoffs on pain catastrophizing and fear avoidance measures.

DISCUSSION

Findings suggest the PRISM is useful in screening for parent distress and behaviors associated with elevated pain symptomatology in a pediatric acute musculoskeletal pain sample. The important next steps are to identify the ideal time for administering the PRISM and to examine the associations among PRISM scores and pain outcomes over time.

Signature for Pain Recovery IN Teens (SPRINT): protocol for a multisite prospective signature study in chronic musculoskeletal pain

INTRODUCTION

Current treatments for chronic musculoskeletal (MSK) pain are suboptimal. Discovery of robust prognostic markers separating patients who recover from patients with persistent pain and disability is critical for developing patient-specific treatment strategies and conceiving novel approaches that benefit all patients. Given that chronic pain is a biopsychosocial process, this study aims to discover and validate a robust prognostic signature that measures across multiple dimensions in the same adolescent patient cohort with a computational analysis pipeline. This will facilitate risk stratification in adolescent patients with chronic MSK pain and more resourceful allocation of patients to costly and potentially burdensome multidisciplinary pain treatment approaches.

METHODS AND ANALYSIS

Here we describe a multi-institutional effort to collect, curate and analyse a high dimensional data set including epidemiological, psychometric, quantitative sensory, brain imaging and biological information collected over the course of 12 months. The aim of this effort is to derive a multivariate model with strong prognostic power regarding the clinical course of adolescent MSK pain and function.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION

The study complies with the National Institutes of Health policy on the use of a single internal review board (sIRB) for multisite research, with Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center Review Board as the reviewing IRB. Stanford's IRB is a relying IRB within the sIRB. As foreign institutions, the University of Toronto and The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) are overseen by their respective ethics boards. All participants provide signed informed consent. We are committed to open-access publication, so that patients, clinicians and scientists have access to the study data and the signature(s) derived. After findings are published, we will upload a limited data set for sharing with other investigators on applicable repositories.

TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER

NCT04285112.

Interventions for Parental Anxiety in Preparation for Pediatric Surgery: A Narrative Review

The preoperative experience can cause significant anxiety for both pediatric patients and their parents in the lead up to a surgical procedure. Pediatric anxiety in a preoperative setting has been shown to have significant negative downstream effects on the clinical outcomes of children and the healthcare system as a whole. Studies have found that preoperative parental anxiety has significant negative effects on children, regarding anxiety and emotional response. Therefore, interventions for parental preoperative anxiety are important to reduce the child’s anxiety. This review provides a brief overview of a broad range of strategies used to alleviate parental anxiety in a preoperative setting. Preoperative education, play-based interventions, music therapy, the presence of parents at induction of anesthesia, and integrative preoperative preparation programs have all demonstrated some evidence for reducing parental preoperative anxiety. The ultimate goal of using interventions for parental preoperative anxiety is to equip healthcare systems to better support families and optimize the perioperative outcomes of children.

Rapid identification and clinical indices of fear-avoidance in youth with chronic pain

Pain-related fear and avoidance are increasingly demonstrated to play an important role in adult and childhood chronic pain. The Fear of Pain Questionnaire for Children (FOPQC) is a 24-item measure of pain-related fear-avoidance in youth that has demonstrated good indices of reliability and validity, treatment responsiveness, and associations with brain circuitry alterations. This study describes the development and psychometric examination of the FOPQC-SF, a short form of the original measure. We selected 10 items for the short form that best represented the content and 2-factor (fear and avoidance) structure of the original measure from a cohort of 613 youth (Mage = 14.7 years) with chronic pain. Next, confirmatory factor analyses from a second sample of 526 youth (Mage = 14.7 years) with chronic pain who completed the FOPQC-SF supported the original 2-factor model but indicated that one item should be moved to the avoidance subscale. The FOPQC-SF demonstrates strong internal consistency and moderate-to-strong construct and criterion validity. The 3-month test-retest reliability estimates (N = 94) were strong, and there was preliminary evidence of responsivity to change. To aid integration into intervention trials and clinical practice, we provide clinical reference points and a criterion to assess reliable change. The short form could be used for rapid identification of pain-related fear and avoidance in youth during clinic evaluations, and is optimized for clinical registries.

[Pediatric pain treatment and prevention for hospitalized children]

INTRODUCTION

Prevention and treatment of pain in pediatric patients compared with adults is often not only inadequate but also less often implemented the younger the children are. Children 0 to 17 years are a vulnerable population.

OBJECTIVES

To address the prevention and treatment of acute and chronic pain in children, including pain caused by needles, with recommended analgesic starting doses.

METHODS

This Clinical Update elaborates on the 2019 IASP Global Year Against Pain in the Vulnerable "Factsheet Pain in Children: Management" and reviews best evidence and practice.

RESULTS

Multimodal analgesia may include pharmacology (eg, basic analgesics, opioids, and adjuvant analgesia), regional anesthesia, rehabilitation, psychological approaches, spirituality, and integrative modalities, which act synergistically for more effective acute pediatric pain control with fewer side effects than any single analgesic or modality. For chronic pain, an interdisciplinary rehabilitative approach, including physical therapy, psychological treatment, integrative mind-body techniques, and normalizing life, has been shown most effective. For elective needle procedures, such as blood draws, intravenous access, injections, or vaccination, overwhelming evidence now mandates that a bundle of 4 modalities to eliminate or decrease pain should be offered to every child every time: (1) topical anesthesia, eg, lidocaine 4% cream, (2) comfort positioning, eg, skin-to-skin contact for infants, not restraining children, (3) sucrose or breastfeeding for infants, and (4) age-appropriate distraction. A deferral process (Plan B) may include nitrous gas analgesia and sedation.

CONCLUSION

Failure to implement evidence-based pain prevention and treatment for children in medical facilities is now considered inadmissible and poor standard of care.

Pediatric pain treatment and prevention for hospitalized children

Introduction:

Prevention and treatment of pain in pediatric patients compared with adults is often not only inadequate but also less often implemented the younger the children are. Children 0 to 17 years are a vulnerable population.

Objectives:

To address the prevention and treatment of acute and chronic pain in children, including pain caused by needles, with recommended analgesic starting doses.

Methods:

This Clinical Update elaborates on the 2019 IASP Global Year Against Pain in the Vulnerable “Factsheet Pain in Children: Management” and reviews best evidence and practice.

Results:

Multimodal analgesia may include pharmacology (eg, basic analgesics, opioids, and adjuvant analgesia), regional anesthesia, rehabilitation, psychological approaches, spirituality, and integrative modalities, which act synergistically for more effective acute pediatric pain control with fewer side effects than any single analgesic or modality. For chronic pain, an interdisciplinary rehabilitative approach, including physical therapy, psychological treatment, integrative mind–body techniques, and normalizing life, has been shown most effective. For elective needle procedures, such as blood draws, intravenous access, injections, or vaccination, overwhelming evidence now mandates that a bundle of 4 modalities to eliminate or decrease pain should be offered to every child every time: (1) topical anesthesia, eg, lidocaine 4% cream, (2) comfort positioning, eg, skin-to-skin contact for infants, not restraining children, (3) sucrose or breastfeeding for infants, and (4) age-appropriate distraction. A deferral process (Plan B) may include nitrous gas analgesia and sedation.

Conclusion:

Failure to implement evidence-based pain prevention and treatment for children in medical facilities is now considered inadmissible and poor standard of care.