APS Press Room
News Highlights from The Journal of Pain • March 2008
The Peer Review Journal of the American Pain Society
| For immediate release | Contact: Chuck Weber (847) 705-1802 |
Study Shows 37% Chronic Pain Rate in Children
GLENVIEW, March 15, 2008—Approximately 37% of children evaluated in a Spanish study have chronic pain, and 5% have moderate-to-severe chronic pain problems, according to new research published in The Journal of Pain.
A sample of 561 schoolchildren in Catalonia ages 8-16 was evaluated by researchers at Rovira i Virgili University to assess the students' prevalence and severity of chronic pain. Researchers collected information from the children about the presence of pain at the time of the interview and in the preceding 3 months, and also asked questions to learn more about the characteristics of the children's pain experiences and their overall quality of life.
Several previous studies have found that pain is a common problem in pediatric patients and can influence their overall health status. Children with moderate to severe chronic pain can experience depression, anxiety, sleep disturbances and developmental problems. Performance in school can be adversely affected as well, evidenced by frequent absences from class and poor attention levels.
Among pediatric subjects in this new study, lower limb pain, headache, and abdominal pain were the most frequently cited pain problems, and both boys and girls appear to be at greater risk as they get older. Lower-limb pain was more common in boys, and girls were more likely to have more severe chronic-pain syndromes (most notably, headaches).
"This study not only showed that chronic pain is a common problem in the general population of children, it also demonstrated again that chronic pain negatively impacts the everyday functioning of children," says psychologist and lead study author Anna Huguet, PhD. The data also showed children with a chronic pain syndrome have a worse quality of life compared to children without pain, and they also report higher functional impairment.
Source: The Severity of Chronic Pediatric Pain: An Epidemiological Study, Anna Huguet and Jordi Miro, Department of Psychology, Rovira i Virgili University, Catalonia, Spain
Patient Self Criticism Influences Pain Condition Prognosis
A new study published in The Journal of Pain demonstrates that patients who are overly self-critical can bias their doctors' clinical judgment of their expected prognosis.
Because pain is a subjective and complex phenomenon, interactions with patients can significantly influence a physician's anticipated prognosis in most pain management settings. Previous studies have shown that a patient's personality and attitude significantly influence physician expectations for successful outcomes.
In this study, an Israeli research team examined self-criticism and sought to assess its significance as an independent influence on physicians' clinical judgments. They defined self-criticism as the "tendency to set unrealistically high self-standards and to adopt a punitive stance toward one's self."
With conditions ranging the full spectrum of pain syndromes, 64 patients were evaluated for the study on their first visit to a tertiary pain clinic. They were interviewed about their pain issues before seeing a physician. Immediately after their visits, the physicians were asked to evaluate each patient's prognosis without seeing the results of his or her interview.
The study concluded that gender, age, self-reported pain, and pain diagnosis had no independent effect on physicians' prognosis for treatments. However, patient self-criticism proved to predict physician pessimism regarding prognosis. The study's authors surmised that overly self-critical patients convey dissatisfaction with their treatment and, in turn, can demoralize their physicians into making negative judgments about potential treatment outcomes.
Source: Patient Self-Criticism Is a Stronger Predictor of Physician's Evaluation of Prognosis than Pain Diagnosis or Severity in Chronic Pain Patients, Zvia Rudich, Sheera F. Lerman, Boris Gurevich, Natan Weksler and Golan Shahar, University of the Negev, Israel
Perceived Muscle Pain Intensity Doesn't Differ in Men and Women
Although it has been widely reported that women experience more pain than men from intramuscular injections, the ways in which gender affects movement-induced muscle pain are not as well documented. The authors conducted two studies on students at the University of Missouri to determine 1) sex differences in recalled muscle pain and attitudes about self-care and the effects of muscle pain on daily activities, and 2) sex differences in reporting delayed-onset muscle pain after exercise.
In the first study, there were no sex differences in the ratings of recalled muscle pain and no differences in the frequency of self-care or on recalled activity limitation. The second study also showed no differences in muscle pain. The only variance was that women reported significantly higher activity interference from delayed-onset muscle pain on the third day after exercise.
The authors noted that additional research is needed to interpret potential gender-related differences in self-care behaviors in response to muscle pain and activity interference levels.
Source: Sex Differences in Muscle Pain: Self-Care Behaviors and Effects on Daily Activities, Erin A. Danneker, Victoria Knoll and Michael E. Robinson, Department of Physical Therapy, University of Missouri