American Pain Society's 27th Annual Scientific Meeting (May 8 – 10, 2008): Parental and Socio-cultural Factors in Pediatric Pain: Laboratory-based, Translational, and Clinical Research Perspectives

The development of effective behavioral therapies for pediatric pain requires an examination of the mechanisms of behavior change responsible for improving coping among children. Recent advances in lab-based and clinical research have greatly increased our understanding of the importance of parental and socio-cultural factors in the experience of pain and expression of pain behavior in children. Dr. Kashikar-Zuck will provide an overview of the current state of research and key areas for further development. Dr. Chambers will speak about lab based research on parent-child interactions in children with pain and healthy children, including the role of maternal attributions for children’s pain behavior and parental responses to children’s pain behavior. Dr. Palermo will discuss research using application of concepts derived from videotaped parent-child interactions to treatment approaches focused on effective communication strategies for parents caring for an adolescent with chronic pain. Dr. Eccleston will talk about the impact of chronic pain on adolescents and their parents, and clinical research on intensive interdisciplinary treatment that includes parents as in integral part of the treatment protocol. Dr. Lu will introduce the social-ecological perspective and discuss the emerging literature on ethnic factors in pediatric pain, and Dr. Evans will present recent findings in the area of ethnic factors that affect children’s coping. Each of the speakers will address strengths and limitations of lab based studies, and translation of findings to clinical applications. Finally, Dr. Kashikar-Zuck and Dr. Lu will lead an interactive discussion on new directions for research in pediatric pain from an integrated social-ecological perspective.