Health Care Utilization and Costs Associated With Pediatric Chronic Pain

The population prevalence of pediatric chronic pain is not well characterized, in part because of a lack of nationally representative data. Previous research suggests that pediatric chronic pain prolongs inpatient stay and increases costs, but the population-level association between pediatric chronic pain and health care utilization is unclear. We use the 2016 National Survey of Children's Health to describe the prevalence of pediatric chronic pain, and compare health care utilization among children ages 0 to 17 years according to the presence of chronic pain. Using a sample of 43,712 children, we estimate the population prevalence of chronic pain to be 6%. In multivariable analysis, chronic pain was not associated with increased odds of primary care or mental health care use, but was associated with greater odds of using other specialty care (odds ratio [OR] = 2.01, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.62-2.47; P < .001), complementary and alternative medicine (OR = 2.32, 95% CI = 1.79-3.03; P < .001), and emergency care (OR = 1.62, 95% CI = 1.29-2.02; P < .001). In this population-based survey, children with chronic pain were more likely to use specialty care but not mental health care. The higher likelihood of emergency care use in this group raises the question of whether better management of pediatric chronic pain could reduce emergency department use.

Among children with chronic pain, we show high rates of use of emergency care but limited use of mental health care, which may suggest opportunities to increase multidisciplinary treatment of chronic pain.