The effect of a pain educational video intervention upon child pain‐related outcomes: A randomized controlled study

Abstract

Background: Pain neuroscience education (PNE) has received increasing research attention demonstrating beneficial effects on pain-related outcomes in adults.Conversely, studies on the effectiveness of PNE in children are scarce. Methods: This study investigated the effect of a pain educational video intervention on child pain-related outcomes (i.e. experienced pain intensity, pain-related fear and catastrophic worry about pain, pain threshold and pain knowledge) in healthy children undergoing an experimental pain task. Furthermore, the moderating role of children's demographic (i.e. sex and age) and psychological (i.e. baseline pain knowledge and anticipated pain intensity, pain-related fear and catastrophic worry) characteristics was examined. Participants were 89 children (M age = 11.85, SD = 1.78), randomly assigned to either a condition whereby they were instructed to watch a brief pain educational video (i.e. experimental group) or to a control condition whereby they did not watch any video. Results: Study findings revealed that accurate pain knowledge and pain threshold were higher amongst children in the experimental group compared to the control group. In contrast with expectations, no main effects of the video intervention were observed for experienced pain intensity, pain-related fear and catastrophic worry. Moderation analyses indicated that the video intervention contributed, in comparisonwith the control condition, to higher levels of pain knowledge amongst younger children only and to higher pain thresholds amongst boys only. Conclusions: Further investigation is needed to optimize pain educational video interventions and to determine whether more beneficial outcomes can be found in clinical (i.e. non-experimental) situations and in children with persistent or recurring pain problems. Significance: Examining the impact of pain educational interventions within a nonclinical setting is deemed particularly important given that adaptive pain coping strategies likely play an important role in preventing the development and maintenance of future maladaptive pain-related behaviour. Further, study findings provide preliminary evidence of baseline and demographic (i.e. age and sex) characteristics explaining differences in the effect of a pain educational video intervention in pain knowledge and pain-related experiences during experimental pain. | 2095 RHEEL Et aL.

The Effect of Robot-Led Distraction during Needle Procedures on Pain-Related Memory Bias in Children with Chronic Diseases: A Pilot and Feasibility Study

“…Children—Prior to (t 1 ) and immediately after (t 2 ) the needle procedure, children self-reported on anticipated (t 1 ) and experienced (t 2 ) state (i.e., situation-specific) catastrophic thoughts about the needle procedure using an adaptation of the PCS-C [ 37 ]. In line with previous research [ 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 ], we used a state version of the PCS-C, including 3 items, with 1 adapted item from each of the 3 subscales (rumination: “To what extent do/did you keep thinking about how much pain the needle procedure could cause?”; magnification: “To what extent do/did you expect that, because of the pain, something serious would happen during the needle procedure?”; helplessness: “To what extent do/did you think you will not be able to endure the needle procedure because of the pain?”). Participants rated their anticipated or experienced catastrophic worry, respectively, regarding the needle procedure on an 11-point numeric rating scale ranging from 0 (“not at all”) to 10 (“extremely”).…”

Spreading the word: pediatric pain education from treatment to prevention

“…On the true preventative side, very recently, pain education is being delivered to and studied in a one-on-one format in healthy children [36,37] as well as in larger groups at middle schools [31,[38][39][40][41][42][43]. Rheel et al [36] found that healthy children (aged 8-15 years) who watched a 15minute pain education video before an experimental heat pain task had higher pain knowledge and higher heat pain thresholds after watching the video compared to a group of children who did not watch this video. However, no group differences were found on experienced pain intensity, painrelated fear and pain catastrophizing during the heat pain task.…”

Pain science education for children living with and beyond cancer: Challenges and research agenda

“…22 According to a recent Cochrane report, there is no evidence to support or refute the use of opioids for treating cancer-related pain in children and adolescents, 21 highlighting the importance of nonpharmacological pain management strategies. One nonpharmacological treatment approach increasingly researched and implemented in pediatric and adolescent clinical 43,44 and nonclinical [45][46][47][48] populations is pain science education (PSE). PSE, also called pain neuroscience education, 49 explains pain, 50 therapeutic neuroscience education 51,52 or pain education, 53 is a conceptual change strategy facilitating patients' understanding of the biopsychosocial aspects of pain, including the contributing role of (neuro)physiological, psychosocial, and environmental factors.…”

“…PSE comprises one or more patient-tailored educational sessions, typically face-to-face between a therapist and patient, and supported by educational materials. Evidence in children and adolescents in clinical 43,44 and nonclinical [45][46][47][48] settings shows that PSE results in increased pain knowledge, 43,[45][46][47][48][55][56][57] more functional pain beliefs, 46,56,57 less catastrophic worry about pain, 58 less pain-related fear, 44 less functional disability, 44 less medication use, 45 higher pain thresholds, 44,48 higher school attendance, 45 and decreased fear of physical activity. 56 There is less evidence that PSE for both adults and children results in reduced pain intensity, 43,44,59 pressure pain thresholds, 60,61 or anxiety.…”