Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium Research Institute for Psychology & Health, Utrecht, The Netherlands IWK Health Centre, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Pain. 2011 Apr;152(4):786-793. doi: 10.1016/j.pain.2010.12.010. Epub 2011 Jan 26.
Preliminary evidence suggests that pain catastrophizing in children may be important in understanding how parents respond to their child's pain. However, no study has investigated whether parental responses, in turn, moderate the impact of child's catastrophizing upon pain outcomes. The present study was designed to address this, and investigated the association of the child's catastrophizing with different types of parental responses (ie, solicitousness, discouragement and coping promoting responses) and the extent to which parental responses moderate the association between the child's catastrophizing and disability. Participants were 386 school children and their parents. Analyses revealed significant associations between the child's pain catastrophizing and parental responses, but with mothers and fathers evidencing different patterns; ie, higher levels of the child's catastrophizing were significantly associated with lower levels of solicitousness by fathers, and with higher levels of discouragement by mothers. Moderation analyses indicated that father's solicitiousness moderated the association between catastrophizing and disability; the positive association between catastrophizing and the child's disability was further strengthened when fathers reported low levels of solicitousness, but became less pronounced when fathers reported high levels of solicitousness. Findings also revealed a moderating impact of mothers' and fathers' promotion of their child's well behaviour/coping. Specifically, the detrimental impact of child catastrophizing upon disability was less pronounced when parents reported high promotion of their child's well behaviours/coping. The findings of the present study suggest the importance of assessing and targeting parental responses to their child's pain to alter the adverse impact of the child's pain catastrophizing on pain outcomes.
初步证据表明，儿童的疼痛灾难化可能在理解父母如何应对孩子的疼痛方面很重要。然而，尚无研究调查父母的反应是否反过来调节孩子灾难化对疼痛结果的影响。本研究旨在解决这一问题，调查了孩子的灾难化与父母不同反应类型（即关心、劝阻和促进应对反应）之间的关联，以及父母的反应在多大程度上调节孩子灾难化与残疾之间的关联。参与者为 386 名学童及其家长。分析显示，孩子的疼痛灾难化与父母的反应之间存在显著关联，但母亲和父亲的表现模式不同；即孩子的灾难化程度越高，父亲的关心程度越低，母亲的劝阻程度越高。调节分析表明，父亲的关心程度调节了灾难化与残疾之间的关联；当父亲报告关心程度较低时，灾难化与孩子残疾之间的正相关关系进一步增强，但当父亲报告关心程度较高时，这种关联变得不那么明显。研究结果还揭示了母亲和父亲促进孩子良好行为/应对能力的调节作用。具体来说，当父母报告高度促进孩子的良好行为/应对能力时，孩子灾难化对残疾的不利影响就不那么明显。本研究的结果表明，评估和针对父母对孩子疼痛的反应很重要，以改变孩子疼痛灾难化对疼痛结果的不利影响。
