Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Belgium Department of Clinical Health Psychology, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA Department of Psychology, Lillehammer University College, Lillehammer, Norway Research Group Health Psychology, University of Leuven, Belgium Centre for Pediatric Pain Research, IWK Health Centre, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, Geneva University, Switzerland.
Pain. 2014 Aug;155(8):1453-1463. doi: 10.1016/j.pain.2014.04.015. Epub 2014 Apr 21.
We investigated the function of parental attention to child pain in regulating parental distress and pain control behaviour when observing their child performing a painful (cold pressor) task (CPT); we also studied the moderating role of parental state anxiety. Participants were 62 schoolchildren and one of their parents. Parental attention towards or away from child pain (ie, attend to pain vs avoid pain) was experimentally manipulated during a viewing task pairing unfamiliar children's neutral and pain faces. Before and after the viewing task, parental distress regulation was assessed by heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV). In a subsequent phase, parents observed their own child perform a CPT task, allowing assessment of parental pain control behaviour (indexed by latency to stop their child's CPT performance) and parental distress, which was assessed via self-report before and after observation of child CPT performance. Eye tracking during the viewing task and self-reported attention to own child's pain confirmed successful attention manipulation. Further, findings indicated that the effect of attentional strategy on parental emotion regulation (indexed by HR, self-report) and pain control behaviour depended on parents' state anxiety. Specifically, whereas low anxious parents reported more distress and demonstrated more pain control behaviour in the Attend to Pain condition, high anxious parents reported more distress and showed more pain control behaviour in the Avoid Pain condition. This inverse pattern was likewise apparent in physiological distress indices (HR) in response to the initial viewing task. Theoretical/clinical implications and further research directions are discussed.
我们研究了父母对孩子疼痛的关注在调节父母在观察孩子进行痛苦（冷加压）任务（CPT）时的痛苦和疼痛控制行为中的作用；我们还研究了父母状态焦虑的调节作用。参与者为 62 名学童及其父母中的一位。在观看任务中，通过配对不熟悉儿童的中性和痛苦面孔，对父母对孩子疼痛的关注（即关注疼痛与避免疼痛）进行了实验操作。在观看任务之前和之后，通过心率（HR）和心率变异性（HRV）评估父母的痛苦调节。在随后的阶段，父母观察自己的孩子进行 CPT 任务，允许评估父母的疼痛控制行为（通过停止孩子 CPT 表现的潜伏期来衡量）和父母的痛苦，这是通过孩子 CPT 表现之前和之后的自我报告来评估的。观看任务期间的眼动跟踪和自我报告的对自己孩子疼痛的关注证实了注意力的成功操作。此外，研究结果表明，注意力策略对父母情绪调节（通过 HR、自我报告来衡量）和疼痛控制行为的影响取决于父母的状态焦虑。具体而言，低焦虑父母在关注疼痛条件下报告了更多的痛苦，并表现出更多的疼痛控制行为，而高焦虑父母在避免疼痛条件下报告了更多的痛苦，并表现出更多的疼痛控制行为。这种相反的模式在生理痛苦指数（HR）对初始观看任务的反应中也很明显。讨论了理论/临床意义和进一步的研究方向。
