The Health Care Transition Needs of Adolescents and Emerging Adults with Chronic Pain: A Narrative Review.

The aim of this narrative review was to provide an overview of what is known about the health care transition process in pediatric chronic pain, barriers to successful transition of care, and the roles that pediatric psychologists and other health care providers can play in the transition process. Searches were run in in Ovid, PsycINFO, Academic Search Complete, and PubMed. Eight relevant articles were identified. There are no published protocols, guidelines, or assessment measures specific to the health care transition in pediatric chronic pain. Patients report many barriers to the transition process, including difficulty attaining reliable medical information, establishing care with new providers, financial concerns, and adapting to the increased personal responsibility for their medical care. Additional research is needed to develop and test protocols to facilitate transition of care. Protocols should emphasize structured, face-to-face interactions and include high levels of coordination between pediatric and adult care teams.

Cross-Sectional Associations among Components of Injustice Appraisals and Functioning in Adolescents With Chronic Pain.

OBJECTIVE: Pain-related appraisals, including pain-related injustice, impact the development and maintenance of chronic pain. This cross-sectional study aimed to examine the relationship between the cognitive-emotional components of pain-related injustice-blame/unfairness and severity/irreparability of loss-and functioning in a mixed sample of adolescents with chronic pain. METHODS: Pediatric patients age 11-18 years (N = 408) completed forms assessing pain-related injustice, pain intensity, and physical and psychosocial functioning as part of their routine assessment in a pediatric chronic pain clinic between January 2014 and January 2019. A series of hierarchical regressions were used to evaluate the relationships among the separate components of pain-related injustice appraisals and functioning. RESULTS: Pain intensity and blame/unfairness appraisals were significantly associated with emotional functioning with blame/unfairness being the stronger association (ß = -.27). Blame/unfairness appraisals, severity/irreparability appraisals, and pain intensity were significantly associated with physical functioning with pain intensity being the strongest association (ß = .36). Pain intensity, blame/unfairness appraisals, and severity/irreparability appraisals were significantly associated with social functioning with blame/unfairness being the strongest association (ß = -.34). Pain intensity and severity/irreparability appraisals were significantly associated with school functioning with severity/irreparability being the stronger association (ß = -.19). CONCLUSIONS: These results lend further support to incorporating pain-related injustice appraisals in standard clinical pain assessments. Treatment practices should target the specific injustice appraisals and domains of functioning impacted for each pediatric patient with chronic pain.

Spinal cord stimulation for treatment of chronic neuropathic pain in adolescent patients: a single-institution series, systematic review, and individual participant data meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE: Neuropathic pain is undertreated in children. Neurosurgical treatments of pediatric chronic pain are limited by the absence of both US Food and Drug Administration approval and pediatric-specific hardware, as well as weak referral patterns due to a lack of physician education. This study presents a single-institution retrospective case series of spinal cord stimulation (SCS) in children ≤ 19 years of age and a systematic review of SCS in children. The authors' findings may further validate the role of SCS as an effective treatment modality for varied neuropathic pain syndromes found in pediatric patients. METHODS: The study was a single-center, single-surgeon, retrospective case series of individuals treated between July 2017 and May 2022. The outcomes for pediatric patients with chronic neuropathic pain syndromes indicated by the multidisciplinary pain clinic for evaluation for SCS were cataloged. A systematic review and individual participant data (IPD) meta-analysis was performed for cases treated until May 2022, using PubMed, EMBASE, and Scopus to characterize outcomes of children with neuropathic pain treated with SCS. RESULTS: Twelve patients were evaluated and 9 were indicated for percutaneous or buried lead trials. Seven female and 2 male patients between the ages of 13 and 19 years were implanted with trial leads. Eight of 9 (89%) patients went on to receive permanent systems. The average trial length was 6 days, and the length of stay for both trial and implant was less than 1 day. Complication rates due to CSF leaks were 22% and 0% for trial and implant, respectively. Visual analog scale pain scores decreased from 9.2 to 2.9 (p = 0.0002) and the number of medications decreased from 4.9 to 2.1 (p = 0.0005). Functional status also improved for each patient. A systematic review identified 13 studies describing pediatric patients with SCS, including 12 providing IPD on 30 patients. In the IPD meta-analysis, pain was reduced in 16/16 (100%) of patients following surgery and in 25/26 (96.2%) at last follow-up. Medication use was decreased in 16/21 (76.2%), and functional outcomes were improved in 29/29 (100%). The complication rate was 5/30 (16.7%). CONCLUSIONS: SCS effectively decreases pain and medication use for pediatric neuropathic pain syndromes. Patients also report improved functional status, including improved matriculation, gainful employment, and physical activity. There is minimal high-quality literature describing neuromodulation for pain in children. Neuromodulation should be considered earlier as a viable alternative to escalating use of multiple drugs and as a potential mechanism to address tolerance, dependence, and addiction in pediatric patients.

Spinal Cord Stimulation Improves Functional Outcomes in Children With Complex Regional Pain Syndrome: Case Presentation and Review of the Literature.

BACKGROUND: In the pediatric population, complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) is a debilitating chronic pain syndrome that is classically treated with escalating polypharmacy and physical therapy. Failure of therapy is often encountered in both adult and pediatric patients with CRPS, after which invasive neuromodulatory therapy might be considered. Intrathecal drug delivery systems and spinal cord stimulation (SCS) have been reported in the literature as forms of neuromodulation effective in adult CRPS; however, SCS remains inadequately researched and underreported in the pediatric CRPS population. Owing to the differences in patient population characteristics and the specific vulnerability of adolescents to drugs that might be used to manage refractory cases, including but not limited to opioids, we believe that early effective pain management without the use of chronic pain medications is of paramount importance. METHODS: Recent evidence suggests that neuromodulation can be useful toward improving function and managing pain, while also reducing medication use in chronic pain patients. A representative case a review of the literature is performed. RESULTS: We report the effective treatment of CRPS in a pediatric patient following implantation of an SCS device typifying the improved pain scores, decreased medication use, and substantially improved functional abilities in pediatric patients following SCS. CONCLUSIONS: The manuscript objective is to stimulate a discussion for SCS use earlier in the therapeutic management of CRPS in children.

Impairment of Inhibition of Trigeminal Nociception via Conditioned Pain Modulation in Persons with Migraine Headaches.

OBJECTIVE: To assess conditioned pain modulation efficiency in persons with and without migraine headaches. DESIGN: Cross-sectional assessment of experimental pain. SETTING: University campus and surrounding community in a large Midwestern US city. SUBJECTS: Twenty-three adults with and 32 without a history of migraine headaches participated in the study. Participants were mostly female (N = 40) with an average age of 23 years. METHODS: Four electrocutaneous stimulations of the supraorbital branch of the left trigeminal nerve were delivered at 150% of an individually determined pain threshold. Conditioned pain modulation was assessed by applying a noxious counterstimulus (forearm ischemia) and delivering four more electrocutaneous stimulations. After each stimulation, pain and the nociceptive blink reflex were assessed. Depression and pain catastrophizing were assessed to control for the potential influence of these variables on pain modulation. RESULTS: Participants with and without migraine headaches had similar baseline pain responsivity, without significant differences in pain report or nociceptive blink reflexes. Pain report was inhibited by conditioned pain modulation in both the migraine and control groups. However, unlike nonmigraine controls, participants with migraines did not exhibit an inhibition of nociceptive blink reflexes during the ischemia task. This pattern persisted after controlling for level of pain catastrophizing and depression. CONCLUSIONS: Migraine sufferers exhibited impaired conditioned pain modulation of the nociceptive blink reflex, suggesting a deficiency in inhibition of trigeminal nociception, which may contribute to the development of migraine headaches.

Maintenance of Pain in Children With Functional Abdominal Pain.

OBJECTIVES: A significant proportion of children with functional abdominal pain develop chronic pain. Identifying clinical characteristics predicting pain persistence is important in targeting interventions. We examined whether child anxiety and/or pain-stooling relations were related to maintenance of abdominal pain frequency and compared the predictive value of 3 methods for assessing pain-stooling relations (ie, diary, parent report, child report). METHODS: Seventy-six children (7-10 years old at baseline) who presented for medical treatment of functional abdominal pain were followed up 18 to 24 months later. Baseline anxiety and abdominal pain-stooling relations based on pain and stooling diaries and child- and parent questionnaires were examined in relationship to the persistence of abdominal pain frequency. RESULTS: Children's baseline anxiety was not related to persistence of pain frequency. Children who, however, displayed irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) symptoms at baseline maintained pain frequency at follow-up, whereas in children in whom there was no relationship between pain and stooling, pain frequency decreased. Pain and stool diaries and parent report of pain-stooling relations were predictive of pain persistence but child-report questionnaires were not. CONCLUSIONS: The presence of IBS symptoms in school-age children with functional abdominal pain appears to predict persistence of abdominal pain over time, whereas anxiety does not. Prospective pain and stooling diaries and parent report of IBS symptoms were predictors of pain maintenance, but child report of symptoms was not.

Concurrent and longitudinal associations among insomnia symptoms, internalizing problems, and chronic pain in youth.

OBJECTIVE: Although insomnia symptoms and chronic pain are associated, less is known about the temporal nature of the associations between these variables or the impact of internalizing symptoms on the associations. Concurrent and longitudinal associations were examined among insomnia symptoms, internalizing symptoms, and pain in youth with chronic pain in this retrospective analysis of clinical records. We hypothesized the following: (a) pain, insomnia symptoms, and internalizing symptoms would be significantly interrelated at all waves, (b) insomnia symptoms would more strongly predict future pain than the reverse, and (c) internalizing symptoms would mediate the longitudinal association between insomnia symptoms and pain. METHOD: Youth (N = 132; age M = 15.34 years, SD = 1.86 years) were assessed at their initial and two subsequent appointments (time between appointments M = 6.48 months, SD = 4.43 months). At each appointment, youth reported their pain severity, insomnia symptoms, and internalizing symptoms. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) and cross-lagged panel models using structural equation modeling were conducted. CFAs and the cross-lagged panel model with pain and insomnia symptoms as latent constructs converged. RESULTS: Pain and insomnia symptoms were positively correlated within each wave. We found bidirectional longitudinal associations between insomnia symptoms and pain. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, these data demonstrate a bidirectional relationship between insomnia symptoms and pain, as well as weak support for internalizing symptoms mediating the association between pain and insomnia symptoms. Treatment of youth with chronic pain should prioritize concurrent or early treatment of comorbid insomnia symptoms to maximize response to pain treatment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Clinical Characterization of Juvenile Fibromyalgia in a Multicenter Cohort of Adolescents Enrolled in a Randomized Clinical Trial.

OBJECTIVE: Juvenile fibromyalgia (JFM) is a complex chronic pain condition that remains poorly understood. The study aimed to expand the clinical characterization of JFM in a large representative sample of adolescents with JFM and identify psychological factors that predict pain interference. METHODS: Participants were 203 adolescents (ages 12-17 years) who completed baseline assessments for the multisite Fibromyalgia Integrative Training for Teens (FIT Teens) randomized control trial. Participants completed the Pain and Symptom Assessment Tool, which includes a Widespread Pain Index (WPI; 0-18 pain locations) and Symptom Severity checklist of associated somatic symptoms (SS; 0-12) based on the 2010 American College of Rheumatology criteria for fibromyalgia. Participants also completed self-report measures of pain intensity, functional impairment, and psychological functioning. RESULTS: Participants endorsed a median of 11 painful body sites (WPI score) and had a median SS score of 9. Fatigue and nonrestorative sleep were prominent features and rated as moderate to severe by 85% of participants. Additionally, neurologic, autonomic, gastroenterologic, and psychological symptoms were frequently endorsed. The WPI score was significantly correlated with pain intensity and catastrophizing, while SS scores were associated with pain intensity and all domains of physical and psychological functioning. Depressive symptoms, fatigue, and pain catastrophizing predicted severity of pain impairment. CONCLUSION: JFM is characterized by chronic widespread pain with fatigue, nonrestorative sleep, and other somatic symptoms. However, how diffusely pain is distributed appears less important to clinical outcomes and impairment than other somatic and psychological factors, highlighting the need for a broader approach to the assessment and treatment of JFM.

Innovations in Trauma-Informed Care: Building the Nation's First System of Trauma-Informed Recreation Centers.

Exposure to adversity and traumatic events affects well-being across important domains of functioning, including mental, physical, social, emotional, spiritual, and neurobiological. Situated as a focal point throughout neighborhoods, recreation centers are a prime opportunity to cultivate spaces of safety and healing. However, current models of trauma-informed care largely do not map neatly onto the recreation organizational structure and functioning. This paper describes the efforts over the past five years to transform the City of Cleveland, Ohio's 22 recreation centers into trauma-informed Neighborhood Resource and Recreation Centers (NRRCs)--places where children, youth, and adults can readily acquire the support and services they need in an environment in which trauma-informed care principles are fully embedded in the fabric of the organization's culture. Phase 1 included transitioning the recreation centers to NRRCs, hiring of trained social workers and counselors to work within the recreation centers, and training all recreation staff about trauma. Phase 2 included development of NRRC trauma-informed standards, development of the Trauma-Informed Progress Tool to track change over time, development of Trauma-Informed Leadership Competencies for Center Managers, and ongoing training for the social workers and counselors. We discuss ideas for future work and lessons learned from each phase.

Anger as a Mechanism of Injustice Appraisals in Pediatric Chronic Pain.

Mechanisms explaining the relationship between pain-related injustice appraisals and functional outcomes in youth with chronic pain have yet to be examined. In studies of adults, greater pain-related injustice is associated with worse depressive symptoms and greater pain through greater anger. No study to date has examined anger expression as a mediator in the relationships between pain-related injustice appraisals and physical and psychosocial functioning in youth with chronic pain. The current sample consisted of 385 youth with varied pain conditions (75% female, 88% White, Mage=14.4 years) presenting to a university-affiliated pain clinic. Patients completed self-report measures assessing anger expression (anger-out and anger-in), pain-related injustice, pain intensity, functional disability, and emotional, social, and school functioning. Bootstrapped mediation analyses indicated that only anger-out (indirect effect= -.12, 95% CI: -.21, -.05) mediated the relationship between pain-related injustice and emotional functioning, whereas both anger-out (indirect effect= -.17, 95% CI: -.27, -.09) and anger-in (indirect effect= -.13, 95% CI: -.09, -.001) mediated the relationship between pain-related injustice and social functioning. Neither mode of anger expression mediated the relationship between pain-related injustice and pain intensity, functional disability, or school functioning. Collectively, these findings implicate anger as one mechanism by which pain-related injustice impacts psychosocial outcomes for youth with chronic pain. PERSPECTIVE: Anger expression plays a mediating role in the relationship between pain-related injustice appraisals and psychosocial outcomes for youth with chronic pain. Anger represents one target for clinical care to decrease the deleterious impact of pain-related injustice on emotional and social functioning.

Battle of the Appraisals: Pain-Related Injustice Versus Catastrophizing as Mediators in the Relationship Between Pain Intensity and 3-Month Outcomes in Adolescents with Chronic Pain.

Pain appraisals are closely tied to pain and functional outcomes. Pain-related injustice and pain catastrophizing appraisals have both been identified as important cognitive-emotional factors in the pain experience of youth. Although pain-related injustice and catastrophizing have been linked to worse pain outcomes - as primary predictors and intermediary variables - little is known about whether they operate as independent or parallel mediators of the relationship between pain and functioning in youth. We tested pain-related injustice and catastrophizing appraisals as candidate mediators of the relationship between baseline pain intensity and 3-month functional outcomes in adolescents. Youth with chronic pain (N = 89, 76% female, 89% White, average age = 15 years) completed measures assessing pain intensity, pain-related injustice, and catastrophizing at baseline, as well as measures assessing functional disability and overall quality of life 3 months later. Multiple mediation analyses indicated that injustice mediated the relationship between pain intensity and 3 month quality of life. Exploratory analyses of specific quality of life domains indicated that injustice mediated the relationship between pain intensity and 3 month emotional functioning, whereas catastrophizing mediated the relationship between pain intensity and 3 month social functioning. The findings suggest these pain-related appraisals play different intermediary roles in the relationships among pain and future psychosocial outcomes. PERSPECTIVE: Pain-related injustice and catastrophizing appraisals play different intermediary roles in the relationships among pain and future psychosocial outcomes in youth with chronic pain. Treatments targeting pain-related injustice appraisals in pediatric populations are needed to complement existing treatments for catastrophizing.

Understanding How Relational Health Effects Intimate Partner Violence Perpetration among Low-Income, Black, Indigenous, Men of Color Exposed to Adverse Childhood Experiences: An Exploratory Study.

Relational health has emerged as a consistent factor that can mitigate the effects of trauma among children; however, less is known about relational health with adults, particularly related to intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration among racially and socioeconomically marginalized men. The Exploratory Sequential Design, Taxonomy Development Model was used. Semi-structured interviews (N = 11) and narrative analysis were conducted in Phase I. In Phase II, variables approximating the key themes that emerged in Phase I were selected from an existing dataset (N = 67), and relationships were examined using bivariate associations. The sample consisted of low-income Black, Indigenous, men of color (BIMOC) in a batterer intervention program (BIP). Adverse life experiences shaped participants' world view via mistrust in others, stifling emotions and vulnerability, and a sense of personal guilt and shame. These orientations were then carried into adult relationships where men coped using social isolation to manage challenges, negatively affecting intimate relationships. For some men, mental health exacerbated these circumstances. Significant bivariate and multivariate associations supported this narrative. This study lays the foundation for future research to examine the potential effects of social support on IPV perpetration. BIPs should consider augmenting programming to enhance men's social networks to support their use of nonviolence after program completion.

Cognitive-behavioral treatment for chronic nightmares in trauma-exposed persons: assessing physiological reactions to nightmare-related fear.

Cognitive-behavioral treatments (CBTs) that target nightmares are efficacious for ameliorating self-reported sleep problems and psychological distress. However, it is important to determine whether these treatments influence objective markers of nightmare-related fear, because fear and concomitant physiological responses could promote nightmare chronicity and sleep disturbance. This randomized, controlled study (N=40) assessed physiological (skin conductance, heart rate, facial electromyogram) and subjective (displeasure, fear, anger, sadness, arousal) reactions to personally relevant nightmare imagery intended to evoke nightmare-related fear. Physiological assessments were conducted at pretreatment as well as 1-week, 3-months, and 6-months posttreatment. Results of mixed effects analysis of variance models suggested treatment reduced physiological and subjective reactions to nightmare imagery, gains that were generally maintained at the 6-month follow-up. Potential implications are discussed.

Peer Support in the Treatment of Chronic Pain in Adolescents: A Review of the Literature and Available Resources.

Peer support has found applications beyond the mental health field and is useful for managing several chronic disorders and supporting healthy lifestyle choices. Communication through telephone and the Internet allows for greater access to those who cannot meet in person. Adolescent chronic pain would seem ideally suited to benefit from online peer support groups. Research is lacking, however, to characterize benefit in terms of pain and function, despite a clear desire among adolescents for access to such programs. More rapid development of online applications is needed for peer support, and research into the associated outcomes will be necessary to optimally design such programs.

Assessment and Treatment Recommendations for Pediatric Pain: The Influence of Patient Race, Patient Gender, and Provider Pain-Related Attitudes.

Previous studies have documented that racial minorities and women receive poorer pain care than their demographic counterparts. Providers contribute to these disparities when their pain-related decision-making systematically varies across patient groups. Less is known about racial and gender disparities in children with pain or the extent to which providers contribute to these disparities. In a sample of 129 medical students (henceforth referred to as "providers"), Virtual Human methodology and a pain-related version of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) were used to examine the effects of patient race/gender on providers' pain assessment/treatment decisions for pediatric chronic abdominal pain, as well as the moderating role of provider implicit pain-related race/gender attitudes. Findings indicated that providers rated Black patients as more distressed (mean difference [MD] = 2.33, P < .01, standard error [SE] = .71, 95% confidence interval [CI] = .92, 3.73) and as experiencing more pain-related interference (MD = 3.14, P < .01, SE = .76, 95% CI = 1.63, 4.64) compared to White patients. Providers were more likely to recommend opioids for Black patients than White patients (MD = 2.41, P < .01, SE = .58, 95% CI = 1.05, 3.76). Female patients were perceived to be more distressed by their pain (MD = 2.14, P < .01, SE = .79, 95% CI = .58, 3.70) than male patients, however there were no gender differences in treatment recommendations. IAT results indicated that providers held implicit attitudes that Black Americans (M = .19, standard deviation [SD] = .29) and males (M = .38, SD = .29) were more pain-tolerant than their demographic counterparts; however, these implicit attitudes did not significantly moderate their pain assessment/treatment decisions. Future studies are needed to elucidate specific paths through which the pain experience and care of children differ across racial and gender groups. PERSPECTIVE: Providers' pain assessment (ie, pain distress/pain interference) and treatment (ie, opioids) of pediatric pain differs across patient race and to a lesser extent, patient gender. This study represents a critical step in research on pain-related disparities in pediatric pain.

Supraspinal modulation of trigeminal nociception and pain.

OBJECTIVE: This study examined modulation of trigeminal pain/nociception by 2 supraspinal mechanisms: emotional controls of nociception and diffuse noxious inhibitory controls. BACKGROUND: Prior research suggests emotional picture viewing (emotional controls) and tonic noxious stimuli (diffuse noxious inhibitory controls) engage supraspinal mechanisms to modulate pain and nociceptive processes. It is currently unknown, however, whether emotional controls modulate trigeminal pain and nociception. Additionally, the influences of emotional controls and diffuse noxious inhibitory controls have not been compared in the same group of participants. METHODS: Noxious electrodermal stimuli were delivered to the trigeminal nerve using a concentric electrode designed to selectively activate nociceptive fibers. Trigeminal nociception and pain were assessed (34 participants) from the nociceptive blink reflex and pain ratings, respectively. Emotional controls were engaged by presentation of standardized picture stimuli (pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant) shown to reliably evoke pleasure-induced inhibition and displeasure-induced facilitation of pain and nociception. Diffuse noxious inhibitory controls were engaged with a forearm ischemia task. RESULTS: Trigeminal pain (self-report ratings) and nociception (blinks) were facilitated by unpleasant pictures and inhibited by pleasant pictures. Emotion induction (as assessed from trend analysis) explained 51% of the variance in trigeminal pain and 25% of the variance in trigeminal nociception. Additionally, forearm ischemia inhibited trigeminal pain but not nociception. The baseline vs ischemia comparison explained 17% of the variance in pain report and 0.1% of the variance in blinks. Supraspinal modulation by emotional controls and diffuse noxious inhibitory controls were uncorrelated. CONCLUSIONS: Emotional controls and diffuse noxious inhibitory controls modulated trigeminal pain and emotional controls modulated trigeminal nociception. These procedures can be used to study supraspinal modulation of nociceptive processing in disorders of the trigeminal pain system, including headache.

Physiological-emotional reactivity to nightmare-related imagery in trauma-exposed persons with chronic nightmares.

Script-driven imagery was used to assess nightmare imagery-evoked physiological-emotional reactivity (heart rate, skin conductance, facial electromyogram, subjective ratings) in trauma-exposed persons suffering from chronic nightmares. Goals were to determine the efficacy of nightmare imagery to evoke physiological-emotional reactivity, correlates (mental health, nightmare characteristics) of reactivity, and consequences (sleep and health problems) of reactivity. Nightmare imagery resulted in significant reactivity relative to control imagery. No mental health variable (posttraumatic stress disorder status, depressive symptoms, dissociation) or nightmare characteristic (months experienced, frequency, similarity to trauma) was associated with reactivity level. However, nightmare imagery-evoked autonomic responses were associated with greater sleep disturbance and reported health symptoms, even when nightmare frequency was controlled. These results suggest nightmare-related autonomic reactions may contribute to sleep and health disturbance.

Injustice perceptions about pain: parent-child discordance is associated with worse functional outcomes.

Pain is experienced within and influenced by social environments. For children with chronic pain, the child-parent relationship and parental beliefs about pain are particularly important and may influence pain outcomes. Pain-related injustice perceptions have recently been identified as an important cognitive-emotional factor for children with pain. The current study aimed to better understand the pain-related injustice perceptions of children with chronic pain and their parents. The sample consisted of 253 pediatric chronic pain patients (mean age = 14.1 years, 74% female) presenting to a tertiary pain clinic. Patients completed measures of pain intensity, pain-related injustice perceptions, stress, functional disability, and quality of life. Parents completed a measure of pain-related injustice perceptions about their child's pain. Child-parent dyads were categorized into 1 of 4 categories based on the degree of concordance or discordance between their scores on the injustice measures. One-way analysis of variances examined differences in pain intensity, stress, functional disability, and quality of life across the 4 dyad categories. Our findings indicated that both the degree (concordant vs discordant) and direction (discordant low child-high parent vs discordant high child-low parent) of similarity between child and parent injustice perceptions were associated with child-reported pain intensity, stress, functional disability, and quality of life. The poorest outcomes were reported when children considered their pain as highly unjust, but their parents did not. These findings highlight the important role of parents in the context of pain-related injustice perceptions in pediatric chronic pain.

The influence of conditioned fear on human pain thresholds: does preparedness play a role?

UNLABELLED: Emotionally charged facial expressions (happy, fear) served as conditioned stimuli in a differential fear conditioning procedure. Expressions were presented in pseudo-random order on a computer monitor. For half of the participants, the fear expression was paired with an aversive electric stimulation (UCS), whereas the happy expression was unpaired. The other participants had the opposite pairing. To assess the influence of conditioned fear on pain, expressions were shown again in the absence of the UCS and pain threshold was assessed during each expression. The latency of finger withdrawal from a radiant heat device was used to index pain threshold. Skin conductance response (SCR) and self-reported emotion were measured to assess fear conditioning. Consistent with preparedness theory, differential fear conditioning was only present when the fear expression was paired with the UCS. Moreover, pain threshold was only influenced by fear conditioning in persons for whom the fear expression was paired with the UCS. Specifically, finger withdrawal latencies were lower (suggesting hyperalgesia) during the fear expression than during the happy expression; an effect that was not present before CS-UCS pairing. This work suggests that some stimuli are more readily associated with an aversive event and can lead to pain enhancement. PERSPECTIVE: Although preliminary, these results suggest that fear-relevant environmental stimuli (including facial expressions) may provide important environmental cues during aversive events that influence the level of pain experienced.

Affective modulation of eyeblink reactions to noxious sural nerve stimulation: a supraspinal measure of nociceptive reactivity?

Research suggests affective picture-viewing modulates subjective and physiological reactions to noxious stimulation (pain report, heart rate acceleration, skin conductance response, nociceptive flexion reflex). Because the nociceptive flexion reflex (a spinal reflex) is modulated by picture-viewing, this suggests affective processes are able to modulate afferent nociception at spinal levels. This highlights the importance of assessing nociceptive reactivity from physiological measures mediated at different levels of the neuraxis (spinal vs. supraspinal) to help elucidate the mechanisms associated with pain regulation. The present study examined whether affective pictures modulate eyeblink reactions (a supraspinal reflex) to noxious stimulation. Healthy men and women (N=23) were recruited from the psychology subject pool to participate. Pictures (attack, loss, neutral, food, erotica) that manipulated affective valence and arousal were presented and noxious electrodermal stimulations were delivered to the sural nerve. Picture duration (500-ms vs. 6-s) was also manipulated, balanced across picture content. Results suggested affective valence and arousal contributed to the modulation of eyeblinks. Eyeblinks were larger during highly arousing unpleasant pictures (attack) than highly arousing pleasant pictures (erotica), but low arousal pictures (loss, food) did not lead to significant modulation. Affective modulation was independent of picture duration or the perceived painfulness of noxious stimulation. This study suggests eyeblink reactions can serve as a supraspinal outcome in procedures used to study affective modulation of pain and nociception.