Children of Parents with Chronic Pain

Chronic pain is a common health problem in both adults and children. Although studies have found that children whose parents have chronic pain may be at risk for developing pain themselves, few studies have addressed how this relationship occurs. One possible explanation is social modeling, which suggests that children learn to display pain behaviours from their parents. Another explanation is that chronic pain affects parenting practices, which in turn affect children's experiences of pain. No research has studied these explanations in children of parents with chronic pain or examined whether these parents respond differently to their children's pain compared to healthy parents. In the proposed study, parents and their children will complete quantitative sensory testing (QST), which examines sensitivity to pain. Half of the parents in the study will have chronic pain and the other half will be healthy and pain-free. Parents will complete the QST alone and then observe their children completing the same tasks. Parents and children will be videotaped and their displays of pain and conversations will be examined. Parents and children will also work together on problem-solving tasks, and their behaviour will be examined to determine the parenting practices that parents use. It is expected that the children of parents with chronic pain will experience more pain than the other children, and that parents with chronic pain will spend more time talking to their children about pain and less time talking about other topics during the QST compared to parents without chronic pain. It is expected that lower levels of parental positive involvement with their children and higher amounts of coercive discipline will be related to children experiencing more pain during the pain tasks. This study will help researchers learn more about pain in children of parents with chronic pain and why they are at greater risk of developing pain problems than other children.