[Parental responses to children's pain : Analysis of the parental responses to their child's pain in the German general population]. / Elterliche Reaktionen auf kindlichen Schmerz : Analyse der elterlichen Reaktionen auf die Schmerzen ihres Kindes in der deutschen Allgemeinbevölkerung.

BACKGROUND: Parental reactions to their child's pain can comprise cognitive-affective and behavioral responses. Dysfunctional responses like parental catastrophizing may lead to an aggravation of the child's pain. OBJECTIVES: Aims of the online-based study were (1) to psychometrically evaluate existing questionnaires into cognitive-affective (Pain Catastrophizing Scale for Parents; PCS-P) and behavioral responses (Inventar zum schmerzbezogenen Elternverhalten; ISEV-E) within a sample of 105 healthy parents, and (2) to compare their responses to existing (inter)national clinical samples and to the reactions of 80 parents with self-reported chronic pain from the general population. METHODS: The assessment of parental pain-related reactions was online-based. RESULTS: While the factor structure of the ISEV-E could not be replicated, the three factors of the PCS-P could be replicated. Parental catastrophizing of the healthy parents was lower compared to clinical samples. Healthy parents did not differ from parents with chronic pain from the general population. CONCLUSION: The results offer a basis to grade parental catastrophizing, so that risk-groups can be identified.