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

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: The current 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 (Mage=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 comparison to 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.

Jaar van publicatie:2021

Trefwoorden:children, experimental pain, pain experience, pain knowledge, pain education

BOF-keylabel:ja

IOF-keylabel:ja

BOF-publication weight:1

Auteurs:International

Authors from:Government, Higher Education

Toegankelijkheid:Open