Parents with chronic pain

Chronic pain is a common health problem that tends to run in families. Past studies have shown that children whose parents have chronic pain are at risk for having pain and mental health problems themselves. However, little is known about which characteristics of parents and children predict which children will be at risk for these problems. In this study, we examined whether pain and mental health problems in children of parents with chronic pain might be predicted by parents’ pain interference (i.e., how much their pain interfered with their everyday activities) and parents’ and children’s negative thoughts and worries about pain. We also looked at how parents and children interacted during a painful experience for the child.

A total of 72 parent-child pairs participated in this study. We found that children tended to have more symptoms of anxiety and depression when their parents’ pain interfered more with everyday activities and the children had more negative thoughts about their own and their parent’s pain. However, these factors did not predict children having higher rates of chronic pain themselves. We found that during a laboratory pain task, when parents talked more about the child’s pain, children tended to talk more about their pain and report higher levels of pain. This study helped clarify how pain runs in families so that future research can work on developing prevention and treatment programs.

Please note that we are no longer looking for new families to participate in this study.