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The effect of a pain educational video intervention upon child pain-related outcomes: A randomized controlled study
Emma Rheel1,2, Kelly Ickmans1,3,4, Aline Wauters2
1Pain in Motion research group (PAIN), Department of Physiotherapy, Human Physiology and Anatomy, Faculty of Physical Education and Physiotherapy, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium.
Insights
Pain neuroscience education (PNE) videos improved pain knowledge and thresholds in children. However, effects on pain intensity and fear were not significant, with variations based on age and sex.
Area of Science:
- Pain neuroscience
- Pediatric pain management
- Educational psychology
Background:
- Pain neuroscience education (PNE) shows promise for adult pain outcomes.
- Research on PNE effectiveness in children is limited.
- Understanding PNE's impact on pediatric pain is crucial for developing effective interventions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate a pain educational video's effect on children's pain outcomes.
- To assess pain intensity, fear, worry, threshold, and knowledge.
- To examine demographic and psychological moderators of the intervention's effects.
Main Methods:
- 89 children were randomly assigned to watch a pain educational video or a control condition.
- Participants underwent an experimental pain task.
- Moderation analyses explored the roles of age, sex, baseline knowledge, and pain expectations.
Main Results:
- Children in the video group showed higher pain knowledge and pain thresholds.
- No significant differences were found in experienced pain intensity, pain-related fear, or catastrophic worry.
- The video increased pain knowledge in younger children and pain thresholds in boys.
Conclusions:
- Pain educational videos may enhance pain knowledge and thresholds in children.
- Further research is needed to optimize interventions for clinical populations.
- Demographic factors like age and sex influence intervention effectiveness.
Background:
Pain neuroscience education (PNE) has received increasing research attention demonstrating beneficial effects on pain-related outcomes in adults. Conversely, studies on the effectiveness of PNE in children are scarce.
Methods:
This study investigated the effect of a pain educational video intervention on child pain-related outcomes (i.e. experienced pain intensity, pain-related fear and catastrophic worry about pain, pain threshold and pain knowledge) in healthy children undergoing an experimental pain task. Furthermore, the moderating role of children's demographic (i.e. sex and age) and psychological (i.e. baseline pain knowledge and anticipated pain intensity, pain-related fear and catastrophic worry) characteristics was examined. Participants were 89 children (Mage = 11.85, SD = 1.78), randomly assigned to either a condition whereby they were instructed to watch a brief pain educational video (i.e. experimental group) or to a control condition whereby they did not watch any video.
Results:
Study findings revealed that accurate pain knowledge and pain threshold were higher amongst children in the experimental group compared to the control group. In contrast with expectations, no main effects of the video intervention were observed for experienced pain intensity, pain-related fear and catastrophic worry. Moderation analyses indicated that the video intervention contributed, in comparison with the control condition, to higher levels of pain knowledge amongst younger children only and to higher pain thresholds amongst boys only.
Conclusions:
Further investigation is needed to optimize pain educational video interventions and to determine whether more beneficial outcomes can be found in clinical (i.e. non-experimental) situations and in children with persistent or recurring pain problems.
Significance:
Examining the impact of pain educational interventions within a non-clinical setting is deemed particularly important given that adaptive pain coping strategies likely play an important role in preventing the development and maintenance of future maladaptive pain-related behaviour. Further, study findings provide preliminary evidence of baseline and demographic (i.e. age and sex) characteristics explaining differences in the effect of a pain educational video intervention in pain knowledge and pain-related experiences during experimental pain.
