Experimental Pain Sensitivity and Parental Pain Catastrophizing

Variability in biopsychosocial factors can explain the interindividual variability in pain. One factor that can impact pain is the pain catastrophizing level. Interestingly, parental pain catastrophizing is related to the severity of the clinical pain of their children. This study explored whether parental pain catastrophizing is also associated with their children's experimental pain sensitivity.

Forty-five healthy girls (mean age 12.07 ± 1.47 years) and one of their parents participated in this study. Parents completed the Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS) about their child's pain (PCS-Parent_child) as well as their pain (PCS-Parent). Children completed the PCS about their pain (PCS-Child) and the Pubertal Developmental Scale (PDS). Children underwent psychophysical tests, including paradigms of temporal summation, heat- and pressure-conditioned pain modulation, offset analgesia, and cold pain tolerance. Correlations and regression models were conducted to assess the relationships between parental pain catastrophizing scales (separately for PCS-Parent_child and PCS-Parent) and experimental pain sensitivity with and without controlling for PCS-Child and PDS. T-tests were used to compare pain sensitivity between participants with vs. without a family history of psychiatric disorder.

No significant relationships were found between the experimental pain sensitivity measures and either PCS-Parent_child or PCS-Parent with and without controlling for PCS-Child and PDS. No differences were found in experimental pain sensitivity between participants with and without a family history of psychiatric disorder.

Parental pain catastrophizing may contribute minimally to the individual variability in experimental pain sensitivity of healthy adolescent girls.