Health Mindsets in Pediatric Chronic Headache.

OBJECTIVE: Given how frequently youth with chronic headache and migraine experience setbacks in treatment, identifying factors that promote coping and resilience is critical. Mindsets have gained attention as predictors of behavior and targets of intervention across contexts, including health. Health mindsets may help to explain how children with chronic pain interpret and respond to treatment. This study evaluated whether growth health mindsets might relate to adaptive outcomes in patients with chronic pediatric headache. METHODS: Participants were 88 children and adolescents (ages 10-17 years) with headache or migraine contacted following an appointment at a pediatric headache clinic, and their parent. Patients rated their beliefs about health as more fixed versus growth-oriented. They were presented with vignettes depicting hypothetical treatment setbacks and instructed to reflect upon real-life setbacks. Patients completed questionnaires about their cognitive appraisals of setbacks, coping, quality of life, life satisfaction, and functional impairment. RESULTS: The higher children rated their growth health mindsets, the less likely they were to appraise setbacks as threatening and endorse quality-of-life problems. Children with higher growth mindsets reported higher life satisfaction and lower functional disability. There was also an indirect relation between children's mindsets and coping through cognitive appraisals of setbacks as a threat, but not challenge. CONCLUSION: This research extends the health mindsets literature by contributing preliminary evidence of health mindsets as tied to adaptive outcomes in youth with chronic headache. These findings may be of interest to clinicians and parents, as health mindsets may offer an avenue by which resilience is promoted and maladaptive appraisals are minimized.

Initial Adjustment to the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Associated Shutdown in Children and Adolescents With Chronic Pain and Their Families.

Objectives: Youth with chronic pain often struggle to function in multiple domains due to pain and associated psychosocial distress. In 2020, schools and businesses shut down and people were encouraged to remain at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, eliminating or reducing stress due to functional difficulties. This study assessed whether pain and associated psychosocial outcomes improved in youth with chronic pain during the shutdown, compared with before the pandemic. Methods: Patients who completed clinical outcome measures during a multidisciplinary evaluation before the pandemic were readministered the same measures (PROMIS Anxiety, Depression, Sleep Disturbance, PCS, PedsQL) during the shutdown. At follow-up, patients also completed measures of adjustment to COVID-19 and their parents completed a measure of pandemic effects. Results: Participants included 47 patients ages 8-18 and a parent/guardian. The pandemic impacted families in both positive (e.g., more quality time with family) and negative ways (e.g., social isolation, disruption in care). Pain intensity and pain catastrophizing significantly decreased during the shutdown (ps <0.01). Change in pain catastrophizing was correlated positively with change in psychological stress (p = 0.004) and anxiety (p = 0.005) and negatively with change in quality of life (p = 0.024). Discussion: Pain and pain catastrophizing decreased initially during the shutdown related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Change in catastrophizing was associated with change in stress and anxiety. It may be that the reduction in functional demands contributed to this change. Functional difficulties should be addressed in treatment, including pain coping and also environmental modification to support optimal functioning in youth with chronic pain.