The silent ones: a review of sampling issues and biases pertinent to the area of pediatric oncology procedural pain.

Pain related to procedures for pediatric oncology patients is a salient topic. Although these procedures can cause much distress, this area has been neglected in research. Previous research has suffered from serious sampling problems, such as using small, nonrepresentative, biased samples. In addition, little is known about the influence of sociocultural factors on the phenomena of pain in children. This article presents the results of a review of the past 10 years of pertinent literature, argues that sociocultural influences on pain need to be studied, and offers suggestions for improving sampling designs.