Pain Neuroscience Education in Healthy Children: A Pilot Study

Pain is a common and daily experience among children that is usually short-term, causing little to moderate discomfort. Yet, a substantial number of children experience chronic pain. Persistent pain periods mainly affect the children's school attendance and participation in recreational activities, possibly leading to academic impairments and social exclusion. Even worse is the children's greater predisposition to develop chronic pain into adulthood. Considering these disadvantages, children suffering from chronic pain should be treated as fast as possible and in the most optimal way. The existing literature on management in children with chronic pain encourages a multidisciplinary approach involving physical therapy and psychological interventions (i.e. cognitive behavioural therapy).

Recently, the application of Pain Neuroscience Education (PNE) as an intervention on its own, as well as in combination with another form of therapy (such as physiotherapy or cognitive- behavioural therapy) is receiving growing interest in the pediatric field of chronic pain. PNE aims to make people understand how their pain is produced and enables them to integrate this understanding into their everyday lives and subsequent treatment components. This innovative education style has shown to be effective in various adult chronic pain populations, by improving the patients' pain coping strategies and health status, and changing their pain beliefs. Although, no study examined the effectiveness of PNE in the context of chronic pediatric pain.

The hypothetical efficacy of pediatric PNE is based on previous findings in adult research that a better understanding of the nature of the illness results in improved patient outcomes. When children do not understand the origin of their pain, they might develop irrational beliefs and fears (including catastrophizing) about their pain, sustaining the vicious circle of chronic pain. Indeed, the information and context in which children perceive their pain, has been shown to modulate pain expectations and emotional response to pain. Since research findings showed that even parental beliefs about the aetiology of the child's pain influences the child's pain outcomes, the role of parents as 'pain modulators' might not be underestimated. Therefore, parents should be involved during PNE.

Concrete, the present study will examine whether reconceptualization of pain, by PNE is able to influence both child and parent knowledge of pain, as well as some other pain-related outcomes.