Caitlin Conroy

What Does It Take? Comparing Intensive Rehabilitation to Outpatient Treatment for Children With Significant Pain-Related Disability

OBJECTIVES This study compared outcomes between day hospital pain rehabilitation patients and patients engaged in outpatient multidisciplinary pain treatment. METHODS This study included 100 children who presented for an initial tertiary care pain clinic evaluation. 50 patients enrolled in intensive day hospital pain rehabilitation and 50 patients pursued outpatient multidisciplinary treatment. Across 2 time points, children completed measures of functional disability, pain-related fear, and readiness to change and parents completed measures of pain-related fear and readiness to change. RESULTS Across both treatment modalities, patients and parents reported improvements. Patients enrolled in intensive pain rehabilitation had significantly larger improvements in functional disability, pain-related fear, and readiness to change. Parents of day hospital patients reported larger declines in child pain-related fear and increased readiness to change compared with their outpatient counterparts. Discussion For patients with high levels of pain-related disability and distress, intensive pain rehabilitation provides rapid, dramatic improvements in functioning.

Fear of pain in the context of intensive pain rehabilitation among children and adolescents with neuropathic pain: associations with treatment response.

UNLABELLED Recent research has implicated pain-related fear in relation to functional outcomes in children with chronic pain. The current study examined fear of pain, disability, and depression within the context of an intensive pain rehabilitation program. One hundred forty-five children and adolescents who participated in an intensive interdisciplinary pediatric pain rehabilitation day program were assessed in this study. Patients completed measures of pain intensity, pain-related fears, functional disability, and depressive symptoms at admission, discharge, and on average, 2 months postdischarge. After controlling for pain intensity, pain-related fear was significantly related to disability and depressive symptoms at all time points. As predicted, a decline in pain-related fear was significantly associated with a decrease in disability and depressive symptoms. Interestingly, high levels of pain-related fears at admission predicted less reduction in functional disability and depression at discharge, suggesting that high levels of pain-related fear may be a risk factor in relation to treatment outcomes. Overall, results indicate that the relationship between fear of pain and changes in disability and depressive symptoms are closely linked, with fear of pain playing an important role in treatment. PERSPECTIVE This paper presents results underscoring the importance of pain-related fear in relation to treatment response for children and adolescents with chronic pain. These findings support the need to develop and implement interventions that target reductions in pain-related fear.

Changes in willingness to self-manage pain among children and adolescents and their parents enrolled in an intensive interdisciplinary pediatric pain treatment program.

TOC summary In an intensive pediatric pain rehabilitation program, increases in children’s readiness to self‐manage pain from pretreatment to posttreatment were associated with improved functioning and decreased emotional distress. Abstract The importance of willingness to adopt a self‐management approach to chronic pain has been demonstrated in the context of cognitive‐behaviorally oriented interdisciplinary pain treatment programs for adults, both as a treatment outcome and as a process that facilitates functional improvements. Willingness to self‐manage pain has not been studied in pediatric interdisciplinary pain treatment settings. Study aims were (1) to investigate willingness to self‐manage pain among children and parents undergoing intensive interdisciplinary pain treatment and (2) to determine whether increased willingness to self‐manage pain influenced functional treatment outcomes. A total of 157 children ages 10 to 18 and their parents enrolled in a pediatric pain rehabilitation program completed the Pain Stages of Change Questionnaire (PSOCQ youth and parent versions) at pretreatment, posttreatment, and short‐term follow‐up. They also reported on pain, functional disability, depressive symptoms, fear of pain, and use of passive and accommodative coping strategies. Results show that willingness to self‐manage pain increased during treatment among both children and parents, with gains maintained at follow‐up. Increases in children’s readiness to self‐manage pain from pretreatment to posttreatment were associated with decreases in functional disability, depressive symptoms, fear of pain, and use of adaptive coping strategies. Increases in parents’ readiness to adopt a pain self‐management approach were associated with changes in parent‐reported fear of pain but not with other child outcomes. Few associations emerged between pretreatment willingness to self‐manage pain and posttreatment outcomes. Findings suggest that interdisciplinary pediatric pain rehabilitation may facilitate increased willingness to self‐manage pain, which is associated with improvements in function and psychological well‐being.

Ecological system influences in the treatment of pediatric chronic pain.

Family, school and the peer network each shape the chronic pain experience of the individual child, and each of these contexts also represents a domain of functioning often impaired by chronic pain. The goal of the present article is to summarize what is known about these bidirectional influences between children with pain and the social systems that surround them. Case reports that illustrate these complex, transactional forces and their ultimate impact on the childs pain-related functioning are included. A case involving siblings participating in an intensive interdisciplinary program for functional restoration and pain rehabilitation highlights how parents change through this treatment approach and how this change is vital to the childs outcomes. Another case involving a child undergoing intensive interdisciplinary treatment illustrates how school avoidance can be treated in the context of pain rehabilitation, resulting in successful return to the regular school environment. Finally, an acceptance and commitment therapy-focused group intervention for children with sickle cell disease and their parents demonstrates the benefits of peer contact as an element of the therapeutic intervention.

Children With Chronic Pain: Response Trajectories After Intensive Pain Rehabilitation Treatment

Intensive pain rehabilitation programs for children with chronic pain are effective for many patients. However, characteristics associated with treatment response have not been well documented. In this article we report trajectories of pain and functional impairment in patients with chronic pain up to 1 year after intensive pain rehabilitation and examine baseline factors associated with treatment response. Patients (n = 253) with chronic pain and functional disability were assessed at 5 time points (admission, discharge, 1-month, 4-month, and 12-month follow-ups). Individual trajectories were empirically grouped using SAS PROC TRAJ. For functional disability, 2 groups emerged: treatment responders (88%) and nonresponders (12%). Using a binomial logistic regression model to predict disability trajectory group, no baseline variables were significant predictors for the disability trajectory group. For pain, 3 groups emerged: early treatment responders (35%), late treatment responders (38%), and nonresponders (27%). Using multinomial regression analyses to predict pain trajectory group, older age, higher pain scores, fewer social difficulties, higher anxiety levels, and lower readiness to change were characteristics that distinguished nonresponders from responders; no significant predictors distinguished the late responders from the early responders. These results provide key information on the baseline factors that influence intensive pain rehabilitation outcomes, including risk factors that predict treatment nonresponse. Our findings have implications for developing more targeted treatment interventions. PERSPECTIVE Deriving groups of individuals with differing treatment response trajectories stimulates new thinking regarding potential mechanisms that may be driving these outcomes.

Photographs of Daily Activities–youth English: validating a targeted assessment of worry and anticipated pain

Abstract PHODA is an electronic measure that individualizes and guides treatment for individuals with chronic pain. Implicit in its design is recognition that pain-related fear is a driving force that impedes treatment progress. With this tool, patients visually rate their expectations about the harmful consequences of specific movements. This study aimed to (1) develop and validate PHODA-Youth English (PHODA-YE) and (2) evaluate the potential impact of PHODA-YE assessment on treatment outcomes. Participants were 195 youth, age 8 to 20 years, who presented to an outpatient pain clinic for evaluation (n = 99), or enrolled at the Pediatric Pain Rehabilitation Center (PPRC) intensive program (PPRC; n = 96). All patients completed the PHODA-YE along with measures of emotional functioning and disability. Patients in the PPRC completed the measure at both admission and discharge. After eliminating infrequently endorsed and poorly loading items, factor analytic procedures yielded a 4-subscale, 50-item measure with strong internal consistency (from 0.92 to 0.97 across subscales). Fear, avoidance, and functional disability were strongly associated with PHODA-YE scores, supporting construct validity. Within the PPRC sample, PHODA-YE was sensitive to changes over time in relation to functional improvements. Across the PPRC sample, patients found it helpful to complete the PHODA and target feared activities. Altogether, the PHODA-YE is a valid and concrete assessment tool that rapidly identifies specific activities and movements that elicit fearful responses from patients.

Feeling the Pressure to Be Perfect: Effect on Pain-Related Distress and Dysfunction in Youth With Chronic Pain

Despite clinical observation of perfectionistic tendencies among youth with chronic pain and their parents as well as established relationships between perfectionism and functional somatic symptoms in adults and youth, no research in the pediatric pain literature has examined perfectionism. This study explored the role of various types of youth and parent perfectionism on youth and parent pain-related distress and behavior and youth pain-related dysfunction. At admission, 239 parent-child pairs from outpatient and day-treatment rehabilitation settings completed several questionnaires assessing perfectionism, pain-related distress, and pain-related dysfunction. Bivariate correlations indicated that socially prescribed perfectionism in youth and parents was linked to youth pain duration, parent and youth pain-related distress and behavior, and youth somatization. Indirect relations showed that youth socially prescribed perfectionism was the only form of perfectionism directly associated with youth somatization whereas all forms of youth perfectionism were indirectly associated with somatization and functional disability through increases in youth pain-related fear and catastrophizing. Additionally, socially prescribed perfectionism was the only type of parent perfectionism linked to youth pain-related dysfunction (somatization, functional disability) through its association with youth pain-related fear. Findings support clinical observations that parent and youth perfectionism is a psychosocial factor that should be targeted in pediatric chronic pain treatment. PERSPECTIVE Perfectionism in youth with chronic pain and their parents was indirectly linked to youth pain-related dysfunction through its effect on youth pain-related catastrophizing and fear. Findings support clinical observations that parent and youth perfectionism is a psychosocial factor that should be targeted in pediatric chronic pain treatment.

The Biopsychosocial Model of Pain in the Context of Pediatric Burn Injuries

Burns are a common and traumatic source of childhood injury in the United States. The treatment and recovery from burn injuries can be significantly painful and may lead to chronic or persistent pain for years following the initial incident. Further, burn injuries in youth have been found to increase the potential for significant psychosocial (e.g., anxiety, depression, PTSD) and physical (e.g., decreased mobility) impairment. Relatedly, the general experience and processing of pain in youth can also be associated with greater psychosocial (e.g., anxiety, depression) impairment and functional disability over time. However, the phenomenology and associated characteristics of the pain experience following burn injury and, in particular, the potential for combined impact on physical and psychosocial outcomes in youth with severe and/or prolonged pain and a history of burn injury is poorly understood.